Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - Icebreaker

TL;DR: Don't expect a beautifully constructed, insightful book that will change your life, and instead, take it for what it is: a light and spicy, contemporary college romance book with the emotional maturity of the 20-somethings it was written about.

Storyline is full of tropes: grumpy girl boss and the sunny hockey captain (the lovable father figure of the found family/ragtag team of unruly hockey players) go from enemies-to-lovers who have to overcome limited resources and learn to share the ice.

I read this book as an audiobook and honestly I wish that I'd had a physical book/ebook to read along with for the sole purpose of annotating/keeping notes to keep the sheer number of characters straight.

This book was like being in a college social circle -- in that there are so many people coming and going and at times you have no idea who is going to stick around/be relevant. There were times where I found myself thinking "why do I care/who the hell is this person?" at some of the anecdotal details, but then again, that's probably what builds the universe that the author is creating.

At times I definitely struggled to get through the story. Anastasia is kind of annoying, there's tons of nicknames (like she has at least 3 I feel like), some of the writing is clunky, and the pacing is weird. Plus there's a lot of stuff that if it happened in real life in your friend group you'd be like uh wtf...

Like if I found out one of my friends was hooking up in an Uber that I was in at the same time as them I'd be pissed. Have some manners girl!! Put some underwear on, knock it off!

But I promised that I would tough it out, and I'm glad I did - Wildfire, the sequel, was much better.

Content Warnings

emmahe's review against another edition

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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

3.5

needed a huge edit, it slowed and nearly stalled at the 4/5 way mark, but overall was loveable. characters are good, romance was relatively well paced (rushed for me at 2/5 and 4/5 but that’s okay!). felt like it was too much packed into one book. could have done without the

main character almost drowning in a frozen lake for seemingly no reason

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idrilcelebrindal's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted sad slow-paced

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

1.5

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k8lynn's review

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funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.5

this book was not worth the hype.

the narrators were annoying, for one. nothing happens between the drinking scenes and the sex scenes. a lot of aspects fall flat, and there seems to be little to no plot besides getting drunk and fucking. even then, those scenes aren't that great. i enjoyed the found family aspect, but it wasn't as much a focal point as it could have been. the dialogue was pretty realistic but listening to the audiobook felt a bit awkward and gave me a new ick: "baby" and "bub" 🤮

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xapoptosisx's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted fast-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

4.25

This book was a 4.5 right up until the epilogue

thats purely because I hate pregnancy stuff so much and it just felt so out of character kinda

apart from that it was good I loved the characters development and how funny the book was also 3 criminal minds mentions had me going insane/pos.

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nomatophobia's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted sad fast-paced

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

5.0

oh. smut books. I GET IT now.

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stevienotnicks's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This one started off strong for me. It had the makings of my fav type of romances: reverse grumpy/sunshine + hockey + he falls first, but it quickly spun out into smut over substance.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a nice bit of spice, but I need a strong plot line and character development and both just missed the mark. The subplots were a bit too ambitious, never fully getting the attention they deserved. The characters were pretty cliche and very one dimensional, despite having the most groundwork laid for pretty complex backstories. I’d hoped to dig deeper into Nate’s relationship with his father and Anastasia’s mental health struggles, but we merely got surface level explanations at best.

A few trigger warnings: There was a LOT of glorification of disordered eating, a hefty bit of slut shaming, and a way too heavy dose of misogyny for my tastes.

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Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Icebreaker by Hannah Grace

masooma1459's review against another edition

reminiscences's review against another edition

hannahgrace23's review against another edition

swamprat410's review

emmahe's review against another edition

idrilcelebrindal's review against another edition

k8lynn's review

xapoptosisx's review against another edition

nomatophobia's review against another edition

stevienotnicks's review against another edition