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_jessicagolden 's review for:
Offside
by Avery Keelan
This book was okay. Any hockey romance after the Game Changers series was going to be facing an unfair standard, but this one was pretty uneven for me. I found it better than Icebreaker, but I still didn’t love much of the first act of this book. The FMC was set up with extremely “not like other girls” energy (she doesn’t even know she’s pretty! she actually eats on dates! 🙄), and the antagonists were so despicable that they were hard to read most of the time.
I do think the book improved overall as it went along, but it was quite long. There are interesting threads to follow about toxic masculinity in sports and a type of subtle, controlling domestic abuse, but I’m not sure it fully landed the plane with all those set ups. And on the other hand, there were plenty of other subplots that were left out to dry with no follow up at all. A very middle of the road hockey romance for me.
The whole subplot about Bailey’s medical bills being mentioned a grand total of three times should absolutely have been cut. It wasn’t even the reason she stopped playing hockey, and they had money problems before that, so it was super unnecessary. Also, to make such a big deal about her parents’ house to the point that Chase loans them money to keep it for Christmas and then…..not follow up on that? Felt like Chekov’s gun just lying around, totally forgotten about. And the female side characters absolutely got shafted here. Amelia and Jillian were incredibly one dimensional and not afforded any opportunity for growth (and the Jill/Derek thing also felt tossed aside), Sophie is just pregnant now with no resolution, and no one seemed all that concerned about Nikki when that video got out even though that probably blew up her life too.