Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Icebreaker

For being one of, if not the most, “smut” labeled book of the last couple of years, I actually really enjoyed it. I think it’s written fairly well, and, as someone who doesn’t enjoy sex scenes, I just got through those to enjoy the rest of the story. But if you like smut and sex scenes, this is the book for you

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yoruuxd's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful fast-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? It's complicated

3.0

I am very torn with this book.
When it first came out, I heard nothing but amazing things and I was so excited to read it. Finally, we were having a return to cutesie, fluffy, YA romance in a sea of serious, long form high fantasy.
After a while, I then heard nothing but negative things, with the biggest sin being its own marketing. It bacon the face of book-tok with everyone talking about it as a cute romance book that touches on more serious topics such as toxic relationships, disordered eating and anxiety but not a single person directly addressing the fact that his book is smutty as hell. It’s marketing as a soft romance, enemies to lovers and even its front cover is a cutesie soft pastel illustration. It became - and continues to be - such a problem that it’s frequently put in YA sections at book stores in spite of it, again, containing multiple explicit scenes. There is nothing about the cover or marketing or book description that indicate it could be anything other than a teen romcom.
To be clear, it’s a decent book. Yes, the writing is cringy in places. It has the distinct feeling of a millennial being down with the kids and I personally dont understand why people hate on this and similar writing when there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s so cute, the characters are fun and likeable, the story is relatable even at its ‘darker’ moments and has so many feet kicking giggle enduring moments. I recommend it for a fun romcom read but, again, it is a smutty book. The smut is well written, but it continues to be marketed - both professionally and on booktok - as a YA book when it absolutely shouldn’t be.
Also, I spent the last half of the book on edge that it was going to end on an accidental pregnancy, when I looked it up everywhere said there wasn’t one and then BAM accidental pregnancy in the epilogue. Yes, they’re both happy about it but it’s still there.
Overall, it is a really fun, cute and hot read that has unfortunate overarching consequences to the reading space.

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lum1nka's review against another edition

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lighthearted fast-paced

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

2.5

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jax10124's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Good book. Standard hockey romance.
Spicy 🌶️ spice 😉

I liked the discussions about therapy and normalization of that.

Lola is my favourite character.

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gracebuffin's review against another edition

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emotional funny 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? Yes

3.25

started out strong! about halfway through it all started to feel quite redundant. they characters had a lot of moments that made me giggle, but the FMC ended up being so annoying i was over it lmao. by the end i was just rushing to finish the book unfortunately

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