MJ Duncan

This book had a lot going for it for me personally. I'm a huge women's hockey fan and I have fervently supported the US women's hockey team for a while now. I go to the University of Minnesota, similar to Emma in this book and I have been to my fair share of Minnesota v. Wisconsin games. I'm also gay so I do also like reading types of romances that reflect my experiences. Because of all my connections to this story personally, I enjoyed this book quite a bit.

This book, with a few notable exceptions, is almost entirely pure fluff. It is set up as a sort of enemies-to-lovers story because Emma and Campbell have played against each other for years and haven't had the best relationship on-ice. However, as soon as they meet and start working together, they basically become friends right away. I kind of wish there was more of a traditional enemies-t0-lovers progression if it was going to be set up that way rather than having them go to be friends right away. I think you can still have people discover that they've kind of had feelings all along even if they don't really get along right away.

This book had way less plot compared to other romances I typically read. In fact, I may even go as far to say there's almost no plot at all. It's really just a group of people living there lives. I didn't mind this but I would have preferred for there to some more central plot. It could have been something following the team they were coaching as they had to play a big game in the playoffs or something. I also would have loved to see more of their teaching, counseling, and coaching. I think it could have shown how much hockey is a part of their lives and relationship if we were shown them coaching more and how they interacted with a team. Most of the times there's anything to do with their coaching it's them talking about how they're going to end practice early so they can go hang out together. I think showing some more of their games and practices would have really helped to create some sort of central plot that still wouldn't overwhelm the romance.

The actual development of the relationship between Emma and Campbell was very cute. Once they got together, they really moved fast, which I think some people might not like. After they got together there was very little conflict. I'm definitely not asking for any bad miscommunication plot lines but there were definitely parts of this book that dragged for me. As much as I did really like seeing the relationship develop, it's started to be less interesting just seeing friends hang out but nothing super exciting happen. I think this could have been solved if this book was a bit shorter or if this book was padded out with more plot, as I discussed.

I thought all the characters were very well developed. It was a fun group of people that did all have very distinct personalities. I think this book did a really good job showing how insular the top levels of competitive sports can be and how everyone sort of knows each other. The author did a very good job writing these characters in a way where is was obvious they had relationships with each other already. There was also some really good representation with these characters, which is always a good thing.

I really enjoyed this book. It spoke to me in so many ways given the ways I was somewhat similar to some of the characters which made this such a fun read for me. Yes I had some issues with this book, but I would absolutely recommend this if you are looking for good books about lesbian romantic relationships, which I know can be harder to find than they should be!… (més)