Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - Pucking Around

Let's be honest. This book is for what it is, period. To read it with your favorite toy at hand and not give the plot too much thought. Porn with (bad) plot, that's all. Don't take it seriously... because if you do.... well, it's a book with some pretty toxic characters. Rachel is a whiny (actually, she whines all the time), manipulative spoiled brat who at no time thinks about anything but her brown pussy. Jake is an insecure little boy who has a lot of self-esteem to work on, the author says he's a golden reteiever, but perhaps he's the most toxic. Caleb could have been an interesting character if he had accepted his sexuality and communicated more, (as it looked like he was going to). And Ilmari... look, the guy is possessive as fuck and has monumental trauma. But hey, they're all possessive as hell and carry their traumas with them. If I dig deeper into the plot, I get more pissed off: their (the boy's) sexuality is specifically misrepresented, because they never admit that they like boys; the relationships between them.... (I think it would all make more sense if Caleb and Jake had something going on before Rachel arrived, if Ilmari had entered the relationship through Jake or Caleb, not Rachel). And worst of all, how toxic and unrealistic relationships and sex are, and that this is available to young impressionable girls. Zero judgedment if you read it as an adult with a head in orden to have a good time, but making it available to young girls seems very dangerous to me and normalizes horrible and super toxic things.
Not LGTB+ friendly at all!!!!!!!!!

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andeng's review

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring tense slow-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

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bekahreadsbooks2019's review

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adventurous funny lighthearted reflective tense 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

5.0

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briochebun's review

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DNF @ 62%

”It's as if his aura takes up so much space all on its own that he compensates by making the other pieces of himself smaller.”

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This novel combined two of my favorite things: hockey & why choose romance. Unfortunately — it still wasn’t able to live up to my expectations.

I admittedly wasn’t the biggest fan of the prequel to this novel — ”That One Night” — but I’ve heard <b>amazing</b> things about ”Pucking Around” so I still wanted to give the novel a go to satisfy all of my curiosities.

One of the main issues that I had while reading ”Pucking Around” was in regards to Rachel’s characterization (which was a bit confusing at times). It felt as though she was all over the place most of the time — there was no consistency to her character.

In the beginning of the novel Rachel stated that she cared about her position too much to risk anything with Jake + Caleb, but not long after that she ended up sleeping with them & forming a relationship with the pair. I understand that she had to cave at some point (it is a romance novel after all), but I did expect her to hold out for at least a little bit longer than she did…

Another issue that I had with this novel was that all of the relationships seemed to lack healthy communication (at least up until the 62% mark — which is where I stopped). I was more of a fan of Rachel + Ilmari & Jake + Caleb as separate couples rather than the MMFM that they were in the process of forming because there were moments where I couldn’t feel the chemistry between them / it didn’t feel like a true why choose MMFM romance to me.

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It’s possible that I’ll attempt to give this one another go in the future — but for now I will just say that I’m glad that others have read and enjoyed this novel & leave it at that. ♡

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