Reviews with content warning for Medical trauma - Long Shot

I love this book, but also finding myself wanting to chuck it against the wall. I don’t think this is a Romance book. The first half the book is spent showing how Iris and August are living separate lives and come together at different points with a deep connection and tension between them. Theirs is a love story. It’s heartbreaking and for Iris, tragic, but ultimately this is not a romance novel.

There is no happy ending or happy for now for both characters before the epilogue. There’s certainly resolution of a major plot point for the MMCs.

But really, this is a contemporary sports fiction novel with romantic elements and an emotional love story between the main characters at the heart.

I never felt - from the start of the book - that Iris was in love with Caleb.

I also never understood why her character would willingly choose to have a baby with a man who, for all intents and purposes in this book, sounds like he sabotaged their contraceptives. For all her grandstanding to August about what an independent woman she was she caved when she found out she was pregnant with someone who she barely liked.

There are descriptive depictions of physical and emotional abuse, rape, and sodomy against the FMC. Yes, there is a trigger warning at the start of the book about intimate partner violence but, this was hard to read and, admittedly I skipped those parts of the book to finish the book and intermittently went back to read/skim for context.

I’m bothered that the real love story for Iris and August, where they can truly be together and with each other is comprised of 144 pages (prior to the Epilogue) while 264 pages are dedicated to detailing Iris’ toxic relationship with Caleb, including detailed pages of the intimate partner violence Iris suffers, and August’s pining for Iris while seeking physical pleasure with other women. 36 pages are dedicated to the epilogue and bonus epilogue where the HEA/HFN happen.

Again, I loved the writing and story telling in the book. I kept turning each page because I had to know what was happening. But I just wish this would have been a duet rather than this all-in one story.

Content Warnings

ashliebysmashliereads's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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dianaschmidty's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Wow, this was a tough, but good book. Kennedy Ryan’s writing is amazing at making you experience what the characters are feeling, both good and bad.

Let’s start off with the good feelings. I absolutely love August West! He was basically exactly what Iris needed exactly when she needed him. They were perfect together, once they were given their chance. I love how the ending talked about soulmates, because they are two characters that make me believe in that idea too. I also loved Iris, especially her character growth in the wake of the suffering she endured.

While this book has a lot of triggering content, I think Kennedy Ryan handled it very well. She brought to life the cruelty in this world, but also offered hope in the wake of that cruelty.

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libroswithlexaa's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense fast-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

4.5

Read trigger warnings!!!

Content Warnings

laura_rheads_too_much's review

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challenging emotional hopeful 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

5.0

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ecravens's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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now_booking's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective 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? No

3.75

I’m torn about how I feel about this one. I think the themes and the characterization of Iris as a heroine that challenges what domestic abuse commonly looks like are eminently important… but I had niggling issues that I’m not yet quite sure how I feel about.

The premise is that August and Iris meet in a bar right before August’s professional basketball career takes off, but the timing is all wrong. Iris is in a relationship with August’s longtime nemesis, Caleb, and he’s signed for a team on the other side of the country. Yet the emotional connection between them is unbreakable as fate and the small world of professional basketball keep bringing them together. While August pines for Iris from a distance, he’s unaware of the real life demons she’s battling.

This is a really heavy book, a sad, viscerally painful, brutal and violent one. I think overall, the author did justice to the theme of domestic violence and fulfilled what she wrote in her preface in the book, of wanting to tell another story of staying in an abusive relationship. More or less all of the physical and sexual violence happens on page in the most brutal way- not once, but repeatedly. In many ways I’m undecided about how I feel about that portrayal. In a sense, it makes the intimate scenes later in the book almost healing in contrast. But in a sense, it in some ways felt perhaps a little gratuitous. I also had a few issues with the pacing of the book. It felt a little to me unbalanced in setting up Iris’s battle in such a detailed way and then rushing her healing and HEA in what felt a little less of a painstaking way. It doesn’t mean I found her healing journey unrealistic, I think it could be plausible. But it at times felt a little skim-y and glossed over. Some of the underlying issues and betrayals within Iris’s family for example even up to the end were kind of touched on but never truly explored. I think in that sense, this could have felt more together. There was also a part where early on, there was a passing glorification of a mixed heritage being a source of attraction that threw me off a bit and sort of unexplored discourse about colourism between Iris and Lotus but these are just minor things that grated at me a bit but did not affect my overall feeling about the importance of this book.

That said, I thought what was most fantastic was the theme of this book and the author taking on this topic and telling it in a different way and within the high profile world of professional men’s sports where (mostly female) partners of athletes are harshly judged for not toeing the line. Beyond that, it is a great, reflective book that challenges everyone who thinks they know exactly what they would do in an abusive situation- a book that greys out decisions that seems like they would be black and white. Of course the highest of trigger warnings for anyone who has experienced abuse especially intimate partner violence- there is a lot of on-page content. Overall, I liked this book. This is I believe my first book by this author and I would read more. I’m on to the next one in the series.

Content Warnings

thefatpaperback's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

3.5

Read content warnings. Do not start this book without reading the content warnings. You need to have a full scope of what you’re getting into, reader. I have been thorough with content warnings. Please read content warnings.

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