kevinscorner 's review for:

Everything For You by Chloe Liese

2.5

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Everything for You is a contemporary MM sports romance and the 5th book in the Bergman Brothers, an otherwise MF romance series. Oliver Bergman is a rising soccer star in the same team as veteran player Gavin Hayes. Ten years his senior and being bisexual himself, Oliver has idolized Gavin as a talented out gay player until they end up on the same team and Gavin seems to hate Oliver. When they are named co-captains, they must find a way to work out their differences on and off the field.

I just could not get behind this book. From the initial set-up, I just did not buy into it. Their initial animosity didn’t really make much sense to me, felt really juvenile, and was just there as a plot device. The writing came across really tryhard and I was just cringing at the dialogue. The characters kept talking like they are therapists so I could not take them seriously and just kept rolling my eyes. While this is indeed a standalone, it is bogged down by having to give updates to nearly every other Bergman sibling/couple—there’s three weddings, a birth, and a completely pointless sibling breakdown to up the drama. I would assume readers of the series would appreciate it, but I was only reading this book.

I so wanted to like the romance between Oliver and Gavin, but I just don’t think it was written believably. While technically slowburn romance, their actual romantic interactions were so minimal before they were already declaring their love for each other. I just did not buy into it. Then the spice is more steamy than actual spice. I just wanted more out of their love story and them as a couple. It was disappointedly lacking in actual romance. As their own characters, I found Oliver to be really childish while Gaven was aggravating in his constantly misplaced feelings. Parts of that may be understandable, but it still annoyed me.

Despite the effort, Everything For You just doesn’t work for me.