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yoruuxd's review against another edition
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body shaming, Cursing, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Pregnancy, and Classism
Minor: Death of parent and Alcohol
kdailyreads's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
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? No
3.75
Overall, an enjoyable read with lovable characters. Really appreciated the couple at the heart of the story communicated well and there was no miscommunication trope between them. I also appreciated how well their friend group communicated and expressed themselves. However, sometimes the pacing of the book felt a bit off and I wished certain elements of the plot were a bit more developed. I was kind of torn between rating this book anywhere between 3.5-4.25 stars - different moments of the book felt stronger than others. All being said, again, it was enjoyable, I liked spending time with the main characters, and I wanted to see where the overall story went. I’ll read more in this series!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, and Vomit
Minor: Terminal illness, Pregnancy, and Classism
nickoliver's review against another edition
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
4.5
I'm gonna be honest, I went into this book with zero expectations. A TikTok-hyped romance between two straight people? Yeah no, I did not have good experience with those. But it actually kind of blew me out of the park?
What surprised me the most was how healthy the relationship was. Anastasia and Nate were so good to each other and showed a great deal of support, talked their issues out, and weren't even a little bit toxic or abusive. At times, Nate was a little bit too possessive for my liking, but he actually learnt from his behaviour and evolved. Men, take notes.
The only criticism about Nate in particular could maybe be that he felt a bit too unrealistic. At one point toward the end, Anastasia calls him a "man written by a woman", and yeah. It was hard to believe that a man like him with his emotions this well regulated could exist in the real world, and that sometimes took me out of the story a little for some reason. But nonetheless, he was dreamy and lovely and such a nice change to what I've seen in other romance books.
The pacing of the romance was done so well, too. Admittedly, the hate part of the story wasn't all too long, but while they hooked up quite quickly, the actual being-in-love-and-dating part wasn't immediate. It felt believable to me. I do think the book could've been a bit shorter because some things in it were a bit pointless, but overall, I really liked the build-up.
I also really liked the side characters, most of which were developed incredibly well and never felt like Grace abandoned them at the curb. Especially the hockey team and their love for Anastasia was so sweet and cute (I cannot wait to get to Henry's romance). The book had a lot of really strong platonic bonds that lacked any jealousy (or a lot of it, anyway), and we do not see nearly enough of that in romance books.
There was also a surprising amount of diversity that I didn't expect. For example, one of Nate's friends was disabled and wheelchair-bound, and another one was a brown, pansexual man. And it felt well done and not relegated to the sidelines too much (not that there was an incredible focus on it, but Grace didn't let these things be random comments that never got relevant again).
I would have liked to see more of both Anastasia and Nate's families, because while they were mentioned a lot and both of them had issues that stemmed from their relationships with their parents, it wasn't focused on nearly enough. The problems just miraculously solved themselves - which was fine in Anastasia's case, but in Nate's? There definitely needed to be more conflict, and more distinct conflict-solving. His sister as well felt half-finished.
Plot-wise, like I said, there were a few things that didn't really need to be in there. Plus, some conflicts were incredibly drawn out, especially the one with Aaron. While I was aware I was supposed to dislike Aaron, he did make enjoying the book very hard. Anastasia gave him the benefit of the doubt for way too long, and even when she stopped doing that, he still kept being in her life. Which I understood, Anastasia explained it well, but again, it drove me insane. I basically spent like 400 pages or so just dreaming about someone telling Aaron everything he did wrong and leaving him behind completely. Which I did end up getting, but just ... way too late.
At the same time, like I mentioned above, sometimes conflicts weren't dealt with properly. The characters would mention, for example, what a nightmare XYZ was (for example, how horrible Nate's father was ), and you kind of expected there to be this huge blowup, but it never ended up coming. The conflict just solved itself in a few pages and was never truly mentioned again.
For a while, it also seemed too sex-heavy. There was barely any plot anymore; instead, Anastasia and Nate just had sex all the time. And while the sex scenes were written very well (very heavy on consent as well, which I appreciated), it just got really boring after a while. Maybe it's because I'm asexual, but reading a book that abandons its plot in favour of several chapters of almost pure sex just isn't appealing to me. Thankfully, at a certain point, the balance between plot and smut got better, but regardless, I was struggling for a while to be interested.
Despite the fact that the book was set at college, you barely saw them in class at all. At certain points in the book, it seemed all they did was either figure skate or party. I'm not saying I needed to get a detailed report of what they did in class, but just a hint here and there that they did, in fact, also have school work to do would've gone a long way. Seeing them drunk off their tits also got tired really quick. (Grace also made some weird plot decisions in that regard. For example, Nate refused to have sex with Anastasia at first when they were drunk because he wanted their first time to not be a drunk hook-up, yet only a day or two later, they had their first time together ... while being drunk. Which suddenly wasn't an issue anymore despite the fact that they didn't talk about being okay with it beforehand? It was very confusing and frustrating.)
The only thing about the book I truly hated was the ending, specifically the epilogue. Literally why was it there. It felt especially weird if you took the fact that this was a college romance into account. Like, that was the kind of thing I'd read about as a teenager in chick-lit books about women in their late twenties, not in books with 21-year-old protagonists. I know they said it happened accidentally, but Anastasia saying in the story itself that she wanted to adopt only to end up pregnant pissed me off so hard. Especially someone like her who spent the entire book emphasising how important her career was should not have been this happy to throw it all away at 23 for a baby in her belly. And of course they also got engaged! It's been a while since a romance book I've read went the "and then in the epilogue they got married and had children" route, and I forgot how much I hated it, especially when it went against everything the character had been saying for 400+ pages.
What surprised me the most was how healthy the relationship was. Anastasia and Nate were so good to each other and showed a great deal of support, talked their issues out, and weren't even a little bit toxic or abusive. At times, Nate was a little bit too possessive for my liking, but he actually learnt from his behaviour and evolved. Men, take notes.
The only criticism about Nate in particular could maybe be that he felt a bit too unrealistic. At one point toward the end, Anastasia calls him a "man written by a woman", and yeah. It was hard to believe that a man like him with his emotions this well regulated could exist in the real world, and that sometimes took me out of the story a little for some reason. But nonetheless, he was dreamy and lovely and such a nice change to what I've seen in other romance books.
The pacing of the romance was done so well, too. Admittedly, the hate part of the story wasn't all too long, but while they hooked up quite quickly, the actual being-in-love-and-dating part wasn't immediate. It felt believable to me. I do think the book could've been a bit shorter because some things in it were a bit pointless, but overall, I really liked the build-up.
I also really liked the side characters, most of which were developed incredibly well and never felt like Grace abandoned them at the curb. Especially the hockey team and their love for Anastasia was so sweet and cute (I cannot wait to get to Henry's romance). The book had a lot of really strong platonic bonds that lacked any jealousy (or a lot of it, anyway), and we do not see nearly enough of that in romance books.
There was also a surprising amount of diversity that I didn't expect. For example, one of Nate's friends was disabled and wheelchair-bound, and another one was a brown, pansexual man. And it felt well done and not relegated to the sidelines too much (not that there was an incredible focus on it, but Grace didn't let these things be random comments that never got relevant again).
I would have liked to see more of both Anastasia and Nate's families, because while they were mentioned a lot and both of them had issues that stemmed from their relationships with their parents, it wasn't focused on nearly enough. The problems just miraculously solved themselves - which was fine in Anastasia's case, but in Nate's? There definitely needed to be more conflict, and more distinct conflict-solving. His sister as well felt half-finished.
Plot-wise, like I said, there were a few things that didn't really need to be in there. Plus, some conflicts were incredibly drawn out, especially the one with Aaron. While I was aware I was supposed to dislike Aaron, he did make enjoying the book very hard. Anastasia gave him the benefit of the doubt for way too long, and even when she stopped doing that, he still kept being in her life. Which I understood, Anastasia explained it well, but again, it drove me insane. I basically spent like 400 pages or so just dreaming about someone telling Aaron everything he did wrong and leaving him behind completely.
At the same time, like I mentioned above, sometimes conflicts weren't dealt with properly. The characters would mention, for example, what a nightmare XYZ was (for example,
For a while, it also seemed too sex-heavy. There was barely any plot anymore; instead, Anastasia and Nate just had sex all the time. And while the sex scenes were written very well (very heavy on consent as well, which I appreciated), it just got really boring after a while. Maybe it's because I'm asexual, but reading a book that abandons its plot in favour of several chapters of almost pure sex just isn't appealing to me. Thankfully, at a certain point, the balance between plot and smut got better, but regardless, I was struggling for a while to be interested.
Despite the fact that the book was set at college, you barely saw them in class at all. At certain points in the book, it seemed all they did was either figure skate or party. I'm not saying I needed to get a detailed report of what they did in class, but just a hint here and there that they did, in fact, also have school work to do would've gone a long way. Seeing them drunk off their tits also got tired really quick. (Grace also made some weird plot decisions in that regard. For example, Nate refused to have sex with Anastasia at first when they were drunk because he wanted their first time to not be a drunk hook-up, yet only a day or two later, they had their first time together ... while being drunk. Which suddenly wasn't an issue anymore despite the fact that they didn't talk about being okay with it beforehand? It was very confusing and frustrating.)
The only thing about the book I truly hated was the ending, specifically the epilogue. Literally why was it there. It felt especially weird if you took the fact that this was a college romance into account. Like, that was the kind of thing I'd read about as a teenager in chick-lit books about women in their late twenties, not in books with 21-year-old protagonists.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Vomit, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexual assault
Minor: Grief, Death of parent, and Pregnancy
ehilbert's review against another edition
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? It's complicated
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders and Sexual content
gracescanlon's review against another edition
emotional
funny
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Sexual assault, Terminal illness, and Classism
tennkait's review
challenging
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
My favorite kind of non-fantasy romances. But I wouldn’t read this one in public.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Cursing, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
fanboyriot's review
challenging
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
If I’m being honest I didn’t care for this book that much. All the mentions of sex felt way too much like immature middle schoolers who just learned what sex was. The smut itself was okay, it read like something on Wattpad (derogatory). Plus the pregnancy trope ruined it for me.
Aaron got away with way too much. I don’t care what little drama with him was for the plot, he should have been put in his place; and even the ending for him wasn’t that good, he gets a transfer? That’s all?! He was so controlling, disgusting, and so creepy.
The other thing that bothered me was how lightly the eating disorder of the FMC was mentioned. She constantly struggled with food and it’s just lightly glossed over? Huh? How are you so pro therapy but continue to ignore most of your problems.
I really liked Nate and his friends, while getting flowers for his girlfriend he also got his friend some because he hadn’t ever gotten any before was such a wholesome moment. Nate’s character in general was really enjoyable.
Read For
✓ Therapy
✓ Insta-Love
✓ College Setting
✓ Sports Romance
✓ Hockey x Figure Skater
Spice Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Sad Level: 💧💧
Plot: 1/10
Pace: 6/10
Ending: 0/10
Characters: 5/10
Enjoyability: 5/10
Writing Style: 2/10
Would I Recommend? No
Favorite Character: Nate Hawkins
Favorite Quote: ❝ It's normal to understand something logically but emotionally feel something different. ❞
POV: Duel, First Person
Pages: 433 (13 hours)
Format: Audiobook (Libby)
Language: English
Release Date: 22, November 2022
Rep/Extras: Mentions of pansexual side character
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Cursing, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Vomit, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, Grief, and Classism
Minor: Cancer, Death, Infidelity, Medical content, and Car accident
ckpeebler's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
uniquely horrible and just a little bit evil in it’s intentions to be quite honest…i will never get this time back
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Cancer, Cursing, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Classism
brifal_'s review against another edition
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
2.75
I picked this up from my friend as a joke but unfortunately, I kind of liked it. Mostly in part because the male love interest parallels my boyfriend in many ways and he’s perfect and hot and talented sooooo…. duh. But the plot was interesting enough and the tension throughout the enemies to lovers trope was enjoyed more than expected.
Be warned that this as close as a book can get to being p0rn basically lol. But ya know what… I wasn’t mad about it 🤷🏻♀️
The maturity of the writing was the hardest thing to see past. There were several times throughout the book where I was like “oh, I’m actually physically cringing”. There were also times where I said to myself, “I could’ve written this in a fanfic when I was 14.” So it’s kind of bad and juvenile but I stuck it out bc the main characters were hot sue me
Also the ending was catastrophically unsatisfying!!! Stas just gets knocked up and basically her whole career is gone?! Be for real girly!!! Did she even want a baby?! Did Nate? It’s just annoying like WHY did they have to get pregnant why can’t they just be successful and chill out
Be warned that this as close as a book can get to being p0rn basically lol. But ya know what… I wasn’t mad about it 🤷🏻♀️
The maturity of the writing was the hardest thing to see past. There were several times throughout the book where I was like “oh, I’m actually physically cringing”. There were also times where I said to myself, “I could’ve written this in a fanfic when I was 14.” So it’s kind of bad and juvenile but I stuck it out bc the main characters were hot sue me
Also the ending was catastrophically unsatisfying!!!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
mika_rom's review against another edition
emotional
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-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
veryyyyyy spicy!!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Cursing, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail