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fanboyriot's review against another edition
emotional
funny
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
5.0
♡ Found Family
♡ Wholesome Friendships
♡ Queer Hockey Romance
I loved this book since chapter one, the characters and plot were so good! It was so easy to fall in love with the characters and be cheering for them the whole time.
The character development was everything. I can’t get over the friendships and relationships in this book, it was so good. It was so easy to love all the characters—they were all literally so amazing!
The sense of humor in this book was so great as always and while this book was super wholesome and cute it also touched on some topics like: white privilege, racism and discrimination. There are mentions to child neglect and abuse that leads the one main character to get emancipated.
This gives the grumpy x sunshine vibe all the while both characters are a bit broken. The sunshine needing just as much comfort as the grumpy one. Rome dealing with a bad home life growing up with years of abuse from a parent. They both do a good job at comforting the other even if it starts out as a slight enemies to lovers moment. And Damien dealing with abandonment issues that only get worse with misunderstandings with his parents until he finally says something.
This lived up to the hype I had for it! I could talk about this for hours, I adored this so much. Rome and Damien had such a trusting relationship and it had a nice slow burn vibe at the beginning. And can I just say all the hand holding—and the not being allowed to talk about the hand holding was absolutely amazing. The level of vulnerability they let each other see was so good! Being able to see them trust each other, Rome especially.
And don’t get me started on the whole Finley thing, especially in the epilogue. It was so wholesome it nearly took me out.
Safe to say I adored this book.
Spice Level: 🌶️ (1/5)
Angst Level: 💧💧💧 (3/5)
POV: Duel, Third Person
Release Date: 26, August 2023
Rep: Bisexual (Main Character), Gay (Main Character), Transfem (Side Character), LGBTQIA+ (Main and Side Characters), BIPOC (Main and Side Characters)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Medical content, Cursing, Abandonment, Alcohol, Panic attacks/disorders, and Racism
Moderate: Grief, Child abuse, and Alcoholism
Minor: Transphobia, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Child abuse, and Domestic abuse
steph_weigle's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
sad
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? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Bullying, Medical content, Cursing, and Racism
Minor: Lesbophobia, Addiction, Abandonment, Outing, Physical abuse, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Domestic abuse, Transphobia, Violence, and Child abuse
piperclover's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
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
5.0
If I could give this more than 5 stars I would. I haven't been this excited about a book and this invested in every aspect of a book in so long. This was so fantastic that I audibly gasped, squealed, and teared up multiple times.
The writing is so clean and digestible that I flew through over a 150 pages without even realizing it. I am such a character-driven reader that I absolutely adore that this is basically a character study of Rome and Damien separately and also how they try to fit together despite not seemingly making sense together. Rome is the kind of character that I love with my whole heart because he's so prickly and defensive but also he's a genuinely good person who tries his hardest to understand everyone's situation and even when he does assume things incorrectly he makes up for it to the best of his abilities.
I absolutely love the conversations that take place in this book regarding race, class, and gender. This isn't a classified as YA but I think it makes a really good YA because it shows in detail how these assumptions about race and class skew are perspectives of each other and cloud our judgment. Rome comes from a very financially and emotionally unstable household so he has hauled the hallmarks of a child who grew up penny-pinching and Damien had the exact opposite experience with a very wealthy, loving home life. But because Damien is black and Rome is white they butt heads constantly because neither of them can see that the other person still has hardships and struggles because they assume that one feature fixes all their problems. Eventually, Damian realizes that just because Rome is white doesn't mean that he's had an easy life and that financial hardship has scarred him and Rome realizes that because Damien is not white he deals with a lot of racism both, overt and covert, even with his immense family wealth. The constant theme and discussion about how white privilege is does not negate hardship and does not mean that Rome's life is easier it's just that his struggles are different so they both have to learn to give up the chip on their shoulder a little bit in regard to each other because neither of them is actually in a better position exactly. Rome takes upon himself to research everything he possibly can about every situation. He weaponizes his white privilege to he calls people out on their racism towards Damien in the most hilarious and effective manners possible. . There's a teammate who is transgender and Rome's reaction to it is so good because he doesn't care but he also doesn't quite understand how that works being on the male hockey team and he wants to know but he also doesn't want to ask and upset anybody. It feels very authentic to his character now that I have read the whole book but it also is such a good representation of what some people feel when they meet somebody who holds an identity they don't know well.
I don't think this is exactly a rivals to lovers but it is definitely opposites-that-butt-heads to lovers and I think it is a really fantastic version of that because we see in a realistic manner for the age of these characters and for the timeline in the book how they genuinely learn to like each other and how they begin to understand each other through trial and error and practice and research. They don't really know what to do with each other but they know that they want to be together so they take precautions to avoid hurting each other and when they do hurt each other they discuss it even if it is halted and awkward and not the best communication ever. A lot of MM romances are about communication and this one is definitely about that too but it's in a different way because these characters do not change to be perfectly openly communicative and bearing their souls to each other but they do learn to listen to each other in a way that they couldn't figure out in the beginning.
This book is just hysterical. I cant count the amount of times I laughed out loud nd I wrote down numerous quotes because they were so funny I couldn't stand not having them written down. At one point the author calls Duo Lingo the "murder owl app" and died laughing and am still laughing even now.
This worked on absolutely every level for me and I am so excited to go back to the first books in the series and read those and I desperately hope they hold up to my expectation now that I read this one and loved it so much.
The writing is so clean and digestible that I flew through over a 150 pages without even realizing it. I am such a character-driven reader that I absolutely adore that this is basically a character study of Rome and Damien separately and also how they try to fit together despite not seemingly making sense together. Rome is the kind of character that I love with my whole heart because he's so prickly and defensive but also he's a genuinely good person who tries his hardest to understand everyone's situation and even when he does assume things incorrectly he makes up for it to the best of his abilities.
I absolutely love the conversations that take place in this book regarding race, class, and gender. This isn't a classified as YA but I think it makes a really good YA because it shows in detail how these assumptions about race and class skew are perspectives of each other and cloud our judgment.
I don't think this is exactly a rivals to lovers but it is definitely opposites-that-butt-heads to lovers and I think it is a really fantastic version of that because we see in a realistic manner for the age of these characters and for the timeline in the book how they genuinely learn to like each other and how they begin to understand each other through trial and error and practice and research. They don't really know what to do with each other but they know that they want to be together so they take precautions to avoid hurting each other and when they do hurt each other they discuss it even if it is halted and awkward and not the best communication ever. A lot of MM romances are about communication and this one is definitely about that too but it's in a different way because these characters do not change to be perfectly openly communicative and bearing their souls to each other but they do learn to listen to each other in a way that they couldn't figure out in the beginning.
This book is just hysterical. I cant count the amount of times I laughed out loud nd I wrote down numerous quotes because they were so funny I couldn't stand not having them written down. At one point the author calls Duo Lingo the "murder owl app" and died laughing and am still laughing even now.
This worked on absolutely every level for me and I am so excited to go back to the first books in the series and read those and I desperately hope they hold up to my expectation now that I read this one and loved it so much.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content
Moderate: Child abuse
Minor: Transphobia
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