Reviews

Icebreaker by Hannah Grace

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larayasreads's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.25

yifanzhai's review against another edition

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1.0

I wish Stassie DID drown in that lake.

This book was irritating on so many levels. First and foremost, WHERE WAS THE PLOT?? The teaser about Nate becoming Stassie's skating partner didn't occur until chapter 25/50... So much of it was so irrelevant and not much was happening because the MC's got together so quickly. It was just a lot of trivial plot points to inspire character growth or something. So dumb. Also, there was too much smut. It's not special if it happens every page man.

Stassie is just UGH. Everyone kept treating her like she was all that when she's clearly not. She has everyone wrapped around her finger, kneeling at her feet, and worshipping the ground she walked on. She had no right to be angry at Nathan for the majority of the book and was literally just creating drama so she could play hard to get or something. It bugs me so much when there is a power imbalance in a relationship and here there clearly was. Nathan is such a sweet guy and he deserves so much better than Stassie. He was always kind and considerate and did absolutely nothing wrong. Also, unpopular opinion, but Henry's innocent little boy act started to get real OLD. Like he is literally 20 years old. Stop babying him. It isn't cute.

I was fine with Robbie, Brin, JJ, and the entire array of side characters. The reason for Ryan's existence was weird and I feel like he could have been cut from the story entirely since he wasn't even mentioned in the back half of the book. Aaron was a jerk and he came off the way he was intended to. I just don't like that he was the reason for all of the conflict between Stassie and Nathan because it felt forced.

Can we talk about the diversity quotas? It's like the author was just checking off boxes; it was so so so forced. We have the disabled guy, the poc, the pansexual, the eating disorder, the low-income, the adoption, the daddy issues, the therapy, the two moms, the "Russian" (?), the cognitive disability, like girl. It's TOO MUCH. There were so many side characters clearly just there to fill the requirement. Please stop.

In conclusion, this book was bad and doesn't deserve all the hype. I wanted to DNF so many times. Will NOT be reading book two. Thanks for listening to my rant!

Anastasia, girl, please put on some pants.