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stephbeaudoin20's review
5.0
Love's Defense by Laura Marquez Diamond
This whole story was a ride! We got a meet cute at the veterinarian, with a sick puppy and a huge hockey player worried about his dog! Daniel has been a player since his divorce, never going to settle down, and Stella just knocks him off his axis. Stella lost her first love and was never going to be intimate or vulnerable again and Daniel connects with her on such a deep and immediate level that he sneaks under her defenses. And then the twists, who Daniel's family is, how his upbringing is so different from hers. The scene where Daniel and Stella are fighting about systemic racism was so poignant. Stella, who has been dealing with racism her whole life, just can't educate this white dude from Texas. And Daniel, who loves Stella so much, just wants to understand. But being a white dude, he doesn't get why Stella can't just teach him. That whole scene was written so well.
This is my 20th book for The Diverse Baseline Challenge, and the second for the prompt of East Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander Author.
This whole story was a ride! We got a meet cute at the veterinarian, with a sick puppy and a huge hockey player worried about his dog! Daniel has been a player since his divorce, never going to settle down, and Stella just knocks him off his axis. Stella lost her first love and was never going to be intimate or vulnerable again and Daniel connects with her on such a deep and immediate level that he sneaks under her defenses. And then the twists, who Daniel's family is, how his upbringing is so different from hers. The scene where Daniel and Stella are fighting about systemic racism was so poignant. Stella, who has been dealing with racism her whole life, just can't educate this white dude from Texas. And Daniel, who loves Stella so much, just wants to understand. But being a white dude, he doesn't get why Stella can't just teach him. That whole scene was written so well.
This is my 20th book for The Diverse Baseline Challenge, and the second for the prompt of East Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander Author.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Stalking, Misogyny, and Racial slurs
mdfn's review
emotional
medium-paced
2.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism and Racial slurs
Minor: Death
jallora73's review
5.0
I loved the story. As a hockey fan, what I loved the most was that the author is obviously a true hockey fan as well. I’ve read other hockey romances that had good stories, but the hockey was all wrong. You could tell that they didn’t know anything about it. This had everything!
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