Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Winging It

Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Winging It by Morgan James, Ashlyn Kane

6 reviews

levilore_'s review

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I really enjoyed this book! I had a good combination of sweet loving moments and steamy sex scenes, but both were relevant to the character's relationship! I loved how Dante's sexuality was explored and that his bisexuality wasn't erased once he got with Gabe. Their relationship was awesome, but I also liked them a lot as characters. I didn't find myself obsessed with one over the other, I liked them both equally which is rare in romance books. Their relationship actually felt real and also was actually mature (another rarity).

(The fact that Dante liked pegging made me laugh out loud and I thought that was a great addition to the normal trope that the gay guy has to show the other how to have sex)

The side characters were awesome as well! They were an awesome addition to the plot and the team,

I particularly loved how they encouraged the relationship between Gabe and Dante plus supported them during the homophobic sections.

This felt like a good exploration of homophobia in a sports enviroment

(like with Kitty)

while also displaying how to be a good ally and friend.

Plus characters like Yorkie actually had a function for main character development.

The only issue I had with this book was that it was a bit slow at the beginning

and I think the break up happened really suddenly. That might've been the point, but maybe the lack of drama is what made it less interesting to me lmao. I wish we had gotten to see more of their relationship once it was public like we did in the extra chapter 2 years later.

Overall, I really liked the writing, characters, and plot! I just didn't have the obsessive desire to keep reading as with other books, I just liked the characters' personalities so I kept going. Not necessarily a negative, I think I'm just a dramatic bitch.

Content Warnings

akirokis's review

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

fishreads's review against another edition

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challenging emotional lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

(This is the review of 2015 edition as I was too silly to realize at the time I was reading the older version of the story. As there have been significant changes between older and newer edition I have decided to review each edition separately with probably some overlap between the reviews.)

Gabriel Martin is a 25 year old closeted hockey player, playing for the Quebec City Nordiques (also known as Dekes), the NHL expansion team playing in Quebec City. Gabe is not interested in coming out and being known as the gay hockey player, subjecting himself to still present homophobia in the league. He's out to two of his teammates and friends and despite not having much luck dating,

his last casual relationship ending when it turned out that the guy he was seeing expected Gabe to be his sugar daddy (the ex, Pierre, was made into a bit of a comic book villain ex),

Gabe is pretty okay with putting his romantic life on hold while playing hockey. The only wrinkle in Gabe's plan is his inconvenient crush on his teammate, last year's rookie, exuberant and straight 20 year old Dante Baltierra.

Unfortunately for Gabe, the universe has different plans for him, as first Dante walks in on Gabe mid road trip hook up, and then his shitty ex outs him in the media. The (majority of the) team and the management rally around Gabe and him and Dante grow even closer with Dante maybe even showing signs that Gabe's little crush might not be as one-sided as he thought. But with Dante possibly freaking out about his attraction to Gabe and Gabe being convinced he could be nothing but a short term fun for Dante the two have a long road in front of them.

I thought this was such a great read as it offered the perfect balance of romance and hockey. I really enjoyed Gabe and Dante's characterizations as the authors took the time to set up their characters and slowly but surely build a relationship between them. On the surface Gabe was exasperated with himself about his crush on his ridiculous younger teammate but underneath there was a genuine fear he might get his heart broken and also the inability to believe he actually deserved a genuine chance at love and happiness. On the other hand, once he embraced his sexuality, Dante was Gabe's complete opposite, unapologetically going after what he wanted. Even though the story was told only from Gabe's POV there was never a question about Dante's thoughts and feelings because Dante was never afraid of expressing himself.

Even though this was m/m hockey romance I felt that the story was realistic about still widely existing homophobia in sports. Considering the story setting in the real world NHL I thought the way the authors included homophobic players on other teams without naming the actual teams or shoehorning fictional players on those same teams was very cleverly done.

Themes: single POV, teammates to lovers, closeted character, bisexual awakening, outed characters, NHL, Stanley Cup playoffs

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tedders_g's review

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funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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kj468's review

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I *adored* this book! I read it in two days flat and immediately bought the novella sequel (The Winging It Holiday Special). See end of review for TW/explanations. If you like hockey romances, definitely pick this book up!
---------------
POV: dual 3rd person
---------------
Representation: MLM, Gay MC, Bi MC, Bi awakening, MC POC (Dante)
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Tropes: hockey, sports gays, famous, outing, secret relationship, family included
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ratings: funny: 4 // ease: 5 // spice: 4 // plot: 5 // romance: 4 // overall: 5
---------------

Likes:

Gabe and Dante have great chemistry; they're so *good* together, both in happy moments and in moments of tension.
The pacing is great & I really liked how the drama rose and fell a couple of times throughout the book.
Gabe's journey of growth, particularly regarding his relationship with the public & his desire to maintain privacy, first with his sexuality and then more generally with his life. It was great to watch Gabe blossom and open up with the team, really becoming a leader among people he initially felt closed off from.
Dante adopting a cat and thrusting said cat on Gabe, and then them co-parenting the cat was one of the recurring highlights of the book (I love cats, give more muscley hockey guys cats please).
The team PR person (and management in general, tbh) is wonderful! It's so comforting to read a book where a PR person doesn't act like being queer is a PR scandal & is truly on the side of the players.
The third-act drama is really well done and has a very satisfying resolution -- slow, mature, & not rushed through. It was great to see the MCs being happy together & solving their problems together *on page*, rather than just implying resolution or glossing over drama with a happy epilogue.

Dislike:

This is petty, but the chapter style is soooo hard to navigate as an ebook. Instead of traditional chapters, it's only broken up into a few sections (like, 1st/2nd/3rd period). While I liked that structure for the book & acknowledge it was a cute way to break the novel into sections & theme it with hockey, it made it SO HARD to try to go back to a previous scene for reference or a reread, because the "chapters" are really long, and scenes get lost in them. I found myself having to bookmark scenes I thought would be important so I had some hope of finding them later. Also, it made it harder to keep track of whose POV I was reading. I think a better solution would have been to break the book into the cutesy sections & have traditional chapters separated with headings and POV switches within the sections.

TW explanations:
Outing:

One of Gabe's exes outs Gabe against his will fairly early in the book. Gabe is upset by this, mainly due to the invasion of privacy & because he largely wasn't out to his team. The team and management are (on the whole) very supportive & management does not make him feel like he did anything wrong.

Homophobia:

One of the players on the team initially has a poor reaction to Gabe coming out, due to the player's cultural background and raising. The player realizes his errors, though, and goes to pretty significant lengths to repair his relationship with Gabe. Also, there's some general homophobia from the media & players/fans from other teams.

Religious Bigotry:

Dante's grandmother, who he is very close to, is extremely religious (I believe Catholic) & does not take Dante coming out as bi well, which causes Dante a lot of stress. There is a bittersweet resolution to this plot point.

Blood: hockey-typical amounts of blood
Injury detail:

One of the main characters injures his arm/shoulder. There are moderate levels of details of the injury and recovery.

Content Warnings

fraise's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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