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levilore_'s review
- 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
The side characters were awesome as well! They were an awesome addition to the plot and the team,
The only issue I had with this book was that it was a bit slow at the beginning
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.
Graphic: Alcohol, Cursing, Homophobia, Outing, and Sexual content
Moderate: Blood, Death, Grief, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Vomit
Minor: Abandonment, Addiction, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexism, and Toxic relationship
things100's review
- 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
4.5
Graphic: Sexual content and Alcohol
Moderate: Religious bigotry, Violence, and Homophobia
fishreads's review against another edition
- 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
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,
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
Graphic: Homophobia
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Religious bigotry
kj468's review
- 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
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POV: dual 3rd person
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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
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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.
- 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:
Homophobia:
Religious Bigotry:
Blood: hockey-typical amounts of blood
Injury detail:
Moderate: Homophobia, Outing, Religious bigotry, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, and Blood
fraise's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Outing, Sexual content, Homophobia, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Biphobia, Alcohol, and Racism
Minor: Abortion
ghost_rider's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Graphic: Outing
Moderate: Religious bigotry and Homophobia
arachan's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
4.0
That being said, this probably won't overwhelm slash hockey fans who will probably prefer fanfic. It's still worth reading and picking up.
Moderate: Religious bigotry and Homophobia