A review by hanreads__
Oar Than Friends by Lulu Moore

emotional funny hopeful informative lighthearted reflective fast-paced

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

4.75

"𝗦𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮 𝗴𝗶𝗿𝗹. 𝗦𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗶𝗿𝗹."

*~*~*~*~*

Love at first sight ✔️
College Rivals ✔️
Golden Retriever MMC ✔️

Firstly, I would like to thank Lulu Moore and Valentines PR for allowing me this ARC. I absolutely adored reading this book, and having it as my first book of Lulu’s just made it even more enjoyable for me.

I’ve slowly been delving into the sports romance genre, but I’ve never seen a sports romance that focuses on rowing! It’s because of Lulu that I will be paying closer attention to whenever rowing is on TV, especially to see if I can find a man like Oz. I also want to watch more rowing so I can appreciate and love the glossary that was the front of the book because that made it even better for me!

Instead of a reformed playboy, you have a gentleman with a heart of gold who has so much passion for a sport that it is remarkable to say the least. He’s been so many great milestones within rowing (ones that I didn’t even know existed until now) and yet he keeps finding more milestones to achieve. I like that Lulu strayed away from the cliches that you find within sports romance and made something fun and beautiful. While I am a sucker for a cliche, I do love when things happen differently, I’d be crazy not too. Oz is a golden retriever in human form and I refuse to believe anything else. He’s kind, warm, genuine, funny, handsome and all around perfect, hell, it’s hard to find a red flag attached to him! My heart breaks for him regarding his dad; Oz deserves much better when it comes to him, a dad who won’t be an asshat or someone who treats his family so poorly. Despite his dad, the rest of Oz’s family are lovely, and the dynamic they have is something that others would do illegal things for. Getting to see him spend time with his family while having Kate there was one of my favourite moments and one I’ll be thinking about for a long time!

Kate being an American was something that I really liked in this story. I had no idea that rowing was popular in America so it was nice to learn that little fun fact. Another thing that I liked about this story was that Kate was involved with the sport, once again Lulu is straying from the cliches and allowing something unique to be a part of the story! I would just like to point out that while some have branded this story as an enemies to lovers, I wouldn’t describe that as one of the tropes, if anything it’s not even a rivals to lovers and there’s love at first sight taking place. Kate is someone who exudes confidence while being down to earth, loyal and unique. Kate goes for what she believes in but also strays from achieving her own dreams in the hopes that she’ll achieve her brothers instead. Kate did frustrate me at times but I can also understand why her scholarship was so important to her; I just wish that she had a bit more trust in Oz considering he had showed he would do anything for her if it meant she was happy.

Friendships played such an important role in this story, and I love that even with rivalry, friendships were still present with both teams. It showed you more about the characters while also creating a great support system on both sides. The friendships also make you want more stories for the characters, and that is something that I am BEYOND excited for! I loved how mature the friendships were and that instead of silly arguments and judgments, the friends rallied around one another and spoke through things logically. I truly believe that without the friendships that Kate and Oz had, they would’ve gone crazy.

The little sneaking around, the moments where you got to see the sport in action, the dreams the characters had. All of these things made the story more beautiful and created something incredible. Everything was so well thought out with this story that it’s hard to think anything negative, and it breaks my heart that I did find three little negative points.

The reason I rated the book down a little was for three reasons:

1. Lack of representation. There were no mentions of characters who had different races, sexualities or disabilities. This left me feeling a little disappointed as I believe that representation is important.

2. Plot holes. The press and a certain situation played a big part through out the story, if not, made the turning point, and yet we never found out what happened to those involved. You cannot have something play a major part and then leave it hanging, it leaves the reading wanting to know more and unsatisfied due to having no outcome.

3. Oz’s dad. I guess this blends in with the plot holes. He was an absolute dock and once Oz finally stood up to him, everything became radio silent. What happened to him? What happened to his contact with the rest of his family? The man deserved to be called out for his shit and yet it didn’t happen.

If you’ve made it to the end of this review, I hope it’s clear that I loved this story and that I would happily read it time and time again. Also, please can we just appreciate the stories name? IT’S SO FREAKING CUTE.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual content