Reviews with content warning for Fatphobia - Icebreaker

“Of course I know you really well, Anastasia. You’re my favorite subject.” ⛸️🏒⛸️🏒⛸️🏒⛸️

Nate and Stassie bring the heat 🔥🔥🔥 This book was so much more SPICY than I was expecting and I was 👏🏻 here 👏🏻 for 👏🏻 it! I loved the side characters too! They added so much fun and humor to the story 🩷 Definitely made me laugh and smile and melted my heart 🫠🩷 Highly recommend!

⚔️ Frenemies To Lovers
❄️ Sports Romance — Hockey + Figure Skating
🌦️ Reverse Grumpy x Sunshine
🎓 College Romance
❤️‍🔥 Beauty On The Streets, Beast In The Sheets Hero
👥 Forced Proximity
🏔️ Northern California
🧠 Mental Health Rep
👫 Awesome Friends with Group Chat Texts

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

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allymoraley's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

This book was so good and cute! I love a grumpy sunshine/pining romance. I am pretty easy to please so 4.5 may be strong to some people but 🤷🏻‍♀️ . There are definitely mentions of disordered eating and eating disorders so be careful of that. But overall the spice and romance did it for me, recommend!

Content Warnings

emipoppet's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

5.0

I absolutely loved this book. Anastasia and Nate were such an excellent couple and the side characters weren’t at all annoying and actually made the book better. There wasn’t anything that made me wanna hide and die of embarrassment and I enjoyed how it ended, though it was quite fast. 5/5, amazing cute fluffy smutty romance.

Content Warnings

sdaley08's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

rachminick's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

booshort's review against another edition

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DNF @ 46%
If I could give this book negative stars I would.

Someone please point me in the direction of the plot, I seem to have lost it entirely.

The Writing:
11% in, I had a feeling I wouldn’t like this book. I really should’ve trusted my gut. If you like books holding your hand through the entire process, this book is for you. There is not one iota of *showing* in this book. There is literally only *telling*.
There’s no description of any surrounding scenery, people’s emotions or expressions; there is only the brief description of each characters appearance when they’re introduced, but you better have a notebook handy, because it’s up to you to remember who is who after that. At one point there wasn’t even a physical description, the FMC was meeting the hockey team members and eventually just said something along the lines of “I mean how else do you describe a hockey player other than big”… and that was it.
Good luck trying to remember who is who and what they look like, because there is about 50 characters that have no reason being there. The author went about describing a group of people at one point leaving an auditorium because they were not-so-subtly called out and shamed by a school admin giving an assembly. We got to know each one of their names, what their situation was, and where they lived… and that’s it. That was the first and last time I had ever heard of those characters.
There is also an obscene amount of time skips, not altogether too long, but the POV character will just offhandedly mention having a conversation with another character “off-screen” so to speak, quite a lot. And it’ll vaguely describe whatever the conversation was, even if it was conflict that could’ve been added to the non-existent plot, it was just swept under the rug as an “oh ya and this happened, anyways…”

The “Plot”:
Now don’t get me wrong when I say this, I in fact am a large consumer of smut and plot-light romance books and I do thoroughly enjoy them; but believe me when I say that this book seriously has *zero* plot.
The “conflict” is the hockey and figure skating teams have to share one ice rink because the other one is broken or something. But they very quickly compromise and are able to build a schedule for both teams without really effecting anyone too much; all within about one chapter. Now everyone is fine, they get their practices in, they just see one another more often.
This all happens and is “resolved” within about the first 15% of the book.
The only other conflict I witnessed other then meaningless drama Anastasia created, was Aaron claimed to be beat up by Nate and he wouldn’t be able to skate anymore. Everyone backed up Nate when he said Aaron was lying, Aaron had literally no proof of anything, but Anastasia believed him. Aaron was skating the next chapter.
So like, why is this book 429 pages?

The Characters:
Jesus Christ the characters. None of them are interesting, the ones you remember are either extremely unlikable or kiddie pool shallow. I know some people are saying Nate and Henry are the only saving grace, and I could agree with that if they were actually well written characters.
Let’s go through the ones I can remember:

FMC/Anastasia: rude, mean, no reason for any of her actions. I get what the author was trying to do, I really do. I struggle with some abandonment issues myself, and I could see how some people would want to avoid it at all costs by being non-committal. What I don’t understand is her being able to pick and choose. She commits to being in a figure skating partnership and *LIVING WITH* one of the most annoying and abusive characters I’ve ever read (more on Aaron later). But can’t commit to people who care and want to support her in a healthy way. Ex. She’s about to go to funky town with our MMC Nate. Nate, responsibly speaks up and says he doesn’t want to have sex with her while they’re both drunk, but that he does want to have sex when they’re sober. Anastasia cries, pretends to go to sleep, but tries to call an Uber after Nate falls asleep. The next day Nate feels like shit, and Anastasia is mad at him. She just seems to be mean, lash out, tease, or cause drama for no apparent reason, yet claims she likes and is good at talking about her feelings. K.

MMC/Nate: hockey guy. Seems nice. I would hang out with him I guess. Deserves better in the love interest, and the writing department.

Aaron: blatantly harassed, belittles, and emotionally/mentally abuses and manipulates people. But *NO ONE* calls him out for it. And if they try to, or start to, Anastasia stops them, or gets mad at them. This man just flat out lies and Anastasia believes it because…?

Lola: stereotypical theatre nerd. Can’t remember anything else.

Ryan: fuck buddy of Anastasia. Actually might be the only side character I thought was written well. Not counting how he slept shirtless with a woman who wasn’t the girl he was dating. Don’t care if it’s right at the beginning of the relationship, if you’re gonna write sus things in your books, those characters better be explaining themselves.

Robby/Bobby: Robby is in a wheelchair but it’s only ever mentioned once. And he was kinda a dick to his best friend to threw him a sick birthday party. I have no idea who Bobby was, but their name kept popping up and I kept getting confused.

Rose/Briar/Kitty/Summer/Aurora/Liv: random women whose only purpose was to sleep with a guy. I think one of the names is unintentionally made up by me, and one is from the synopsis of the second book. I can’t remember which for each.

Henry: oh dear. Let me preface this by saying I am a professionally diagnosed autistic woman. Now, how do I put this without going into a long diatribe about autistic representation in media. I don’t think I can. So I’ll try to keep it to bullet form;
- he is an autistic-*coded* character. And a poor one at that.
- His only reason for existing in this book is to be autistic.
- He has no personality other than “I am blunt and speak my mind no matter what”
- Every other characters reaction to him flip-flops between “omg he’s so cute/quirky!”, “wtf he’s such a dick”, and “we must protect him :,(“
Safe so say I was not happy with this representation. If you’d like to read well written romance books about autistic characters, please read Helen Hoang.

Content Warnings

sienasummerrreads's review against another edition

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funny hopeful tense slow-paced

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

3.0

This follows Anastasia who is training for a spot on the USA team. Nate Hawkins is focused on Hockey and being team captain but falls hard and fast when Anastasia makes an impression. It’s all fun and games until lies and manipulation are involved.

This book was good. It’s very character driven and felt like it was college, parties, a little ice hockey, skating and repeat. Not much plot that kept it interesting. The spice was fantastic though and Nate Hawkins is boyfriend material. It’s also a bit long.
Was hoping I would love it but for me, it’s just a good read.

If you love:

🔹Hockey & Ice Skating
🔹College Friends & Drama
🔹Character Driven
🔹Boyfriend Material
🔹Fantastic Spice
🔹Praising

Genre/Type: Sports Romance 18+
APK: Physical / Audiobook
Pages: 429
Audio Length: 13hrs 23mins
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟
Spice: 🌶️🌶️
Series or Stand Alone: Book 1 In Maple Hills Series
Tropes or Themes: Sports Romance, College, Reverse Grumpy Sunshine, Hockey, Ice Skating, Forced Proximity, Gaslighting, Mentions Counting Calories & Fat Comments
Check Triggers ⚠️

All Round Romance Reader

Sienasummerrreads 💕📚

Content Warnings

drufroste36's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

"Icebreaker" by Hannah Grace is a lighthearted and entertaining romance novel that manages to tackle sensitive themes such as family dynamics, social class divide, eating disorders, and mental health in a thoughtful and relatable way. The author does a great job of intertwining these themes into the story, providing a deeper emotional resonance to the plot.

The main characters are well-developed and likable, especially the female lead who is both stubborn and kind-hearted. The male love interest is highly unrealistic, but still manages to be charming and endearing. However, the real standout character is the villain/frienemie, who is expertly written and highly unlikable.

While the plot can be a bit slow-paced at times, and there are a lot of supporting characters to keep track of, the author's writing style is engaging and keeps the story moving along. The only downside to the book is the heavy emphasis on smut, which may not be to everyone's liking, especially towards the end where it detracts from the plot.

Overall, "Icebreaker" is a fun and enjoyable read that is perfect for fans of fluffy, smutty romance novels. Despite its flaws, the book is well-written and thought-provoking, making it a great choice for anyone looking for a light and entertaining read with a bit of substance.

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