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A review by imskylow
Icebreaker by Hannah Grace
Did not finish book. Stopped at 61%.
What are you people smoking? What is it about this book that had the masses on BookTok in a chokehold? I finally get around to listening to this (not even reading it! LISTENING) and I couldn’t stand to finish it. I listened to 8 hours of it and could not be begged to finish the last 5. It’s time for a book bash, kids. (Punches will not be pulled. If you don’t agree, move along. It’s just my opinion).
Where to begin with the myriad of things I didn’t like about this book…
Maybe I should start with the fact that the first 30% of the book had almost nothing to do with ice skating or hockey. They spent more time at an exclusive club off campus than on the rink. And then, the rest of the book continues like you would assume from a book with a figure skater and hockey player on the front. One joins/tries the other sport out of necessity and they bond over it. Boom. Plot of the story. 🤯
The next thing that irked me was how unenjoyable these characters are. There is not a likable bone in Anastasia’s little body. I guess she’s just visually attractive to Nathan? Or maybe she just plays hard to get? I just really didn’t see much of her personality that drew me to her character. She was so introduced as such snippy and frustrating person. I thought Aaron, her skating partner, was a more dynamic character with a more compelling back story even though he’s antagonistic. Or even Henry was more interesting, with the gay moms and how he actually knows how to take care of a woman. He’s a sweetheart.
Another thing: there was almost NOTHING intriguing about the smut. Nothing kicking-my-feet-and-making-me-squeal about it. I think resistance, tension, or an exceptionally well built relationship helps the sex scenes become more enticing or have more of a payoff. There’s none of that. They just have bang and then Anastasia goes back to being prissy, grouchy ice skater out of the bedroom.
Look, I am a connoisseur of smut but if you’re going to write in that much detail, you need to include other details as well. Nate has zero refractory period. He can just bang and bang and bang. And while that might be true for some guys of 21, it is unusual. Also, the effectiveness of a condom plumets when you use the same one for three rounds. So while the smut might mostly spicy and erotic, it had me groaning in my head.
One of my biggest pet peeves of the spicy books of today is that authors skip over relationship building moments. We don’t get to see the actual scenes or chemistry of the couple just existing or hanging out together. It was the sentence (it might be worded slightly different, to hard to remember exactly) that really made me mad: “I love hanging out with Anastasia when she’s sober. She so talkative and has so many thoughts and opinions”. What the hell? She’s a human, of course she has thoughts and opinions. But what are they?? Why do we not get to see them bonding outside of sex? Why don’t we get to see any cute or silly conversations? Books like these that use time lapse phrases rather than show actual conversations make me so unreasonably angry. It removes all chemistry from the characters. No, I’m sorry. I don’t know if you two actually work together.
This is a lesser pet peeve but still one that bores me: the fact that a therapy appointment (or plural I don’t know if there was more later) was written into the book. It’s not the inherent concept of therapy that I dislike, if fact I think many characters from many books should be going, it’s the fact that points of the story we have already experienced are reexplained. It feels like we’re being spoon fed the morals of the story over a recap. Either unfold the story/scenes entirely within the therapy session and skip over them outside of it OR have the characters experience the story and then just skip over the therapy session. I don’t want the story experienced and then retold to me in a boring therapy session. It’s like watching a rerun.
I honestly don’t recommend this book if you’re looking for well written romance or smut with likable characters and an intriguing storyline. It really felt unimaginative and super predictable. I’m glad I got it from my library and didn’t buy it like I was planning to.
Where to begin with the myriad of things I didn’t like about this book…
Maybe I should start with the fact that the first 30% of the book had almost nothing to do with ice skating or hockey. They spent more time at an exclusive club off campus than on the rink. And then, the rest of the book continues like you would assume from a book with a figure skater and hockey player on the front. One joins/tries the other sport out of necessity and they bond over it. Boom. Plot of the story. 🤯
The next thing that irked me was how unenjoyable these characters are. There is not a likable bone in Anastasia’s little body. I guess she’s just visually attractive to Nathan? Or maybe she just plays hard to get? I just really didn’t see much of her personality that drew me to her character. She was so introduced as such snippy and frustrating person. I thought Aaron, her skating partner, was a more dynamic character with a more compelling back story even though he’s antagonistic. Or even Henry was more interesting, with the gay moms and how he actually knows how to take care of a woman. He’s a sweetheart.
Another thing: there was almost NOTHING intriguing about the smut. Nothing kicking-my-feet-and-making-me-squeal about it. I think resistance, tension, or an exceptionally well built relationship helps the sex scenes become more enticing or have more of a payoff. There’s none of that. They just have bang and then Anastasia goes back to being prissy, grouchy ice skater out of the bedroom.
Look, I am a connoisseur of smut but if you’re going to write in that much detail, you need to include other details as well. Nate has zero refractory period. He can just bang and bang and bang. And while that might be true for some guys of 21, it is unusual. Also, the effectiveness of a condom plumets when you use the same one for three rounds. So while the smut might mostly spicy and erotic, it had me groaning in my head.
One of my biggest pet peeves of the spicy books of today is that authors skip over relationship building moments. We don’t get to see the actual scenes or chemistry of the couple just existing or hanging out together. It was the sentence (it might be worded slightly different, to hard to remember exactly) that really made me mad: “I love hanging out with Anastasia when she’s sober. She so talkative and has so many thoughts and opinions”. What the hell? She’s a human, of course she has thoughts and opinions. But what are they?? Why do we not get to see them bonding outside of sex? Why don’t we get to see any cute or silly conversations? Books like these that use time lapse phrases rather than show actual conversations make me so unreasonably angry. It removes all chemistry from the characters. No, I’m sorry. I don’t know if you two actually work together.
This is a lesser pet peeve but still one that bores me: the fact that a therapy appointment (or plural I don’t know if there was more later) was written into the book. It’s not the inherent concept of therapy that I dislike, if fact I think many characters from many books should be going, it’s the fact that points of the story we have already experienced are reexplained. It feels like we’re being spoon fed the morals of the story over a recap. Either unfold the story/scenes entirely within the therapy session and skip over them outside of it OR have the characters experience the story and then just skip over the therapy session. I don’t want the story experienced and then retold to me in a boring therapy session. It’s like watching a rerun.
I honestly don’t recommend this book if you’re looking for well written romance or smut with likable characters and an intriguing storyline. It really felt unimaginative and super predictable. I’m glad I got it from my library and didn’t buy it like I was planning to.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Sexual content, Eating disorder, and Emotional abuse