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anna_wa's review
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
Four years after her debut novel Love Blooms, Stephanie Hoyt returns with another genre-b(l)ending fantasy new adult romance. Unlike Love Blooms, this one *is* a coming out narrative - or at least halfway. AB Cerise, the famous pop star, has been out as bisexual for years already (not that everybody respects his attraction to women and men).
Matthew Hellman-Levoie is convinced he could not possibly be queer because he has seen enough men in his life as a hockey player that he feels he should've figured it out already - but then he meets AB Cerise. In the bathroom, of all the most romantic places to meet in. But you know, can't choose where or when you meet your soulmate.
Even though my review of "Love Blooms" didn't even exist yet in February, I feel like Hoyt still heard my gripes and fixed a LOT of them in this book. The world-building was superb; this time I actually felt like I knew what was going on all the way around her magical world. It felt very well thought out and created.
And another thing improving over her previous novel was that there were actual difficulties, there were actual misunderstandings and complications. The characters' anxieties actually made tangible sense to me and a lot of times I felt worried for them (and honestly, sometimes it's extremely hard to make anxiety make sense in writing because anxiety doesn't make sense a lot of times).
Holding this book to its own merit, separate from the author's previous work: I learned more about OCD thanks to this one book (even though I know a queer fantasy romance can't teach me everything about OCD, I still understand more now than I did before it started). I don't know that I learned very much more about hockey than what I knew before (which already wasn't much) but it was still endearing. I loved that Matthew also had an equal passion for art and used his superpower to make art (kind of like one of my artist friends with synesthesia, hehe).
I still feel like I can't give this a full five stars because, as much as I enjoyed the main characters, the magical world, and the concept, I feel Hoyt has a long way to go in way of learning how to show some things rather than just tell them. She is really really great at dialogue, but I couldn't help but feel some of the discussions the characters had about their fears could've been turned into scenes where they are confronted with those fears in real time.
And, just on a technical note, there were a lot of times where there were no dialogue tags for a few quotes in a row and I got confused on who was talking. It's not *always* necessary to add a dialogue tag if the same two people are talking to each other for long periods of time, but there were several moments where a lack of dialogue tags confused me a lot and I couldn't tell who was talking - or, also important, what tone they were saying it in. A lot of times the side characters felt a little mean?? to their best friends. And I know a certain amount of sarcasm and playful teasing is part of most friendships, but it just seemed like there were so many moments where the side characters were being unnecessarily aggressive - however, I could have also just read the tone incorrectly (which a dialogue tag would've helped with).
I thought the inclusion of the tweets by AB fans and Hockey fans was a nice touch and I enjoyed Victoria Newberry's illustrations a lot. I thought those tweets worked in some ways as showing rather than just telling (because rather than just talking about what the fans are saying, we SEE what the fans are saying).
(spoiler for ending right here)And I know it sounds weird but I'm glad that the book ended with Matthew losing his promised spot on the Miners after several rounds of articles about how he would be a poor fit for the Miners. One thing I hate is when authors connect their books to real life homophobia&biphobia but then don't actually show us any of that homophobia&biphobia in action. The worst case of this was Red, White & Royal Blue for me. I felt insulted by how this one relationship supposedly ended all homophobia in two countries after spending the whole book talking about how homophobic the two countries are. So yes, as strange as it may seem, I'm grateful Matthew's fears weren't misplaced and he *did* face homophobic/biphobic backlash. But he still gets a happy ending. I want characters to get happy endings - I just also don't want to be lied to. You know what I mean?
All around, I enjoyed reading this book a lot and, as I said in my review of Love Blooms, Stephanie Hoyt is only going to continue getting better and better and I can't wait to see what magical genre-b(l)ending adventure she takes us on next! :) Highly recommend this for any fan of Check Please! or Heartstopper (but it's not a teen book. No, this is definitely not a teen book. Hahaha.)
Matthew Hellman-Levoie is convinced he could not possibly be queer because he has seen enough men in his life as a hockey player that he feels he should've figured it out already - but then he meets AB Cerise. In the bathroom, of all the most romantic places to meet in. But you know, can't choose where or when you meet your soulmate.
Even though my review of "Love Blooms" didn't even exist yet in February, I feel like Hoyt still heard my gripes and fixed a LOT of them in this book. The world-building was superb; this time I actually felt like I knew what was going on all the way around her magical world. It felt very well thought out and created.
And another thing improving over her previous novel was that there were actual difficulties, there were actual misunderstandings and complications. The characters' anxieties actually made tangible sense to me and a lot of times I felt worried for them (and honestly, sometimes it's extremely hard to make anxiety make sense in writing because anxiety doesn't make sense a lot of times).
Holding this book to its own merit, separate from the author's previous work: I learned more about OCD thanks to this one book (even though I know a queer fantasy romance can't teach me everything about OCD, I still understand more now than I did before it started). I don't know that I learned very much more about hockey than what I knew before (which already wasn't much) but it was still endearing. I loved that Matthew also had an equal passion for art and used his superpower to make art (kind of like one of my artist friends with synesthesia, hehe).
I still feel like I can't give this a full five stars because, as much as I enjoyed the main characters, the magical world, and the concept, I feel Hoyt has a long way to go in way of learning how to show some things rather than just tell them. She is really really great at dialogue, but I couldn't help but feel some of the discussions the characters had about their fears could've been turned into scenes where they are confronted with those fears in real time.
And, just on a technical note, there were a lot of times where there were no dialogue tags for a few quotes in a row and I got confused on who was talking. It's not *always* necessary to add a dialogue tag if the same two people are talking to each other for long periods of time, but there were several moments where a lack of dialogue tags confused me a lot and I couldn't tell who was talking - or, also important, what tone they were saying it in. A lot of times the side characters felt a little mean?? to their best friends. And I know a certain amount of sarcasm and playful teasing is part of most friendships, but it just seemed like there were so many moments where the side characters were being unnecessarily aggressive - however, I could have also just read the tone incorrectly (which a dialogue tag would've helped with).
I thought the inclusion of the tweets by AB fans and Hockey fans was a nice touch and I enjoyed Victoria Newberry's illustrations a lot. I thought those tweets worked in some ways as showing rather than just telling (because rather than just talking about what the fans are saying, we SEE what the fans are saying).
(spoiler for ending right here)
All around, I enjoyed reading this book a lot and, as I said in my review of Love Blooms, Stephanie Hoyt is only going to continue getting better and better and I can't wait to see what magical genre-b(l)ending adventure she takes us on next! :) Highly recommend this for any fan of Check Please! or Heartstopper (but it's not a teen book. No, this is definitely not a teen book. Hahaha.)
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, and Biphobia
Minor: Homophobia
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