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4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
Wow, I could have done without the "God is not here" comments during sex.
Spoiler
I love that Gavin went to therapy and tried to get his shit together for Oliver, but also basically said he's a work in progress and will mess up because he's human.Ultimately - I just didn’t like Oliver or Gavin as people nor did I really understand what they liked about each other. Sweet that they found each other and I didn’t have any real issues with the story other than how heavily Hamilton is referenced (I like Hamilton but this was a bit much for me).
We have 24 year old Oliver Bergman, a bright sunshine-y, people-pleasing, anxiety-stricken soccer prodigy, and his brooding, older, soccer legend teammate Gavin Hayes. Oh did I mention they're also neighbors? They butt heads. Gavin is in constant pain from long-lasting career injuries and finds Oliver's bright demeanor insufferable. When the coach makes them co-captains, they're forced to get to know each other and even work together to be a good pair of leaders for their teammates. What starts as a prank war develops into a full-fledged battle against the growing tension between them.
This was everything!! The tension was off the charts. The Grumpy/Sunshine was GIVINGGGGG! Gavin was the right side of mean and Oliver wasn't too naive or oblivious. It was steamy and emotional and heartfelt and just everything to me. My only gripes are that Liese's dialogue sometimes gets a little too preach-y life lesson-y without sounding natural. Additionally, I could see how just reading this book alone you would be annoyed by the immense amount of Bergmans and their partners but as someone who has read all the books previous to this one, I loved them in it!
Highly recommend if you want to try out Liese's writing!!
minor spoilers below*
First of all, Gavin wasn't 'grumpy' despite what the story so profusely likes to claim. He was just an asshole. That's it. The way he treated Oliver in the beginning was so goddamn unprofessional, which completely contradicts the rule-oriented way he was presented in the book. Also, not nearly enough was done to reconcile his past actions when they do end up together, not to mention the fact that his justification for those actions just made no sense at all to begin with. The author tried to give a believable reason, but alas, it was anything but that.
This is not a slow-burn romance either, despite what the description suggests. Oliver and Gavin go from having stupid levels of needless animosity whilst wanting to fuck each other for some reason(??) to then professing their complete and utter adoration for each other with barely any meaningful development. It felt so awkward and unbelievable. Also, the way Gavin ends up poetically describing his love for Oliver was completely out of character. Sometimes the author tried so hard to contrast their personalities while the other times their thoughts, dialogues, vocabulary and ways of thinking were indistinguishable, they were like cardboard cutouts made for the purpose of self-insertion, it was so weird to read.
And this read so much like the format of an MF romance written with the 'gay' label, because Oliver's place in the story felt so stereotypically like a woman's. I did not like that at all.
There was so much jarring insertion of social-commentary where characters just went on a hyper-sophisticated tangent about something, but it never sounded like a real human being speaking. Once or twice is fine since after all, the contents of these tangents were about real, important topics, but they felt so out of place and were unpleasant given the context they were randomly inserted in.
That's all the complaints I can think of off the top of my head. Again, nothing egregious, but the accumulation of so many unlikeable things in a story leaves a sour taste in my mouth.