Reviews with content warning for Eating disorder - Icebreaker

Type of read: Commuter Read.

What made me pick it up: BookTok made me do it.

Overall rating: I do believe, this might be the one. This is the one that finally does it. 'Icebreaker' is the book that might make me stop listening to all the random recommendations on BookTok.

First, I don't think I'm a sports romance girly. It's just not my vibe. I don't hate it, but everything in 'Icebreaker' was so cliche. If this was romance book bingo, I'd have a blackout by the end of the book. Let's talk about some things I did appreciate about this book though - the consent. We love to see that. It was a little redundant and spelled out, but I appreciate what Grace was doing with the consent piece. I also like the casualness that Grace used when approaching some of the relationships, both sexual and not. It made it feel like a real friend group/college environment.

I think part of my issue with 'Icebreaker' was that the narrators - while great - didn't give me the feel of Nate and Anastasia. Their tone and voices seemed much older and it almost made it weird trying to envision them as sex-crazed, college athletes. The vibe was just off. I hate that I'm comparing it to this, but I think of something like 'Haunting Adeline' where the narrator choice was brilliant. I can picture those narrators as Zane and Adeline. I just didn't feel like the choices for 'Icebreaker' represented who I wanted Nate and Anastasia to be in my mind.

Overall, I can see why there is such hype all over social platforms for 'Icebreaker.' It's steamy, it's lighthearted, it's something that you can almost see yourself in. And honestly, it's very much set in a way that's all about the FMC and what she wants, in and out of the bedroom. There's even some great material to keep in your brain file for certain occasions but none of that can make up for the fact, at least for me, that at its core, 'Icebreaker' is a mediocre, cliche story that doesn't have much going for it past the spice.

Reader's Note: 'Icebreaker' is sexually explicit in an incredibly descriptive, quite literal porn-on-the-page sort of way. There's also general bullying, harassment, and disordered eating (including a lot of calorie talk).

Content Warnings