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A review by kj468
Trade Deadline by Jodi Oliver
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
I dnf'd this book at 30% last year, but my notes were just that I forgot what was happening and vaguely remembered being bored by it... so in a moment of desperation, I picked it up a second time. I should not have.
This book might be the single most egregious case of insta-love I've ever read. Insta-love is a trope I usually can tolerate somewhat okay, especially if the writing helps the falling-in-love process feel longer than it actually is if you look at a calendar. I'm willing to suspend disbelief and accept that relationships often move at a pace that I would be outraged by anyone in my life moving at. But wow. This book. Insta-love reached for the stars and found a whole new level.
Some background: the hockey player guy is a notorious playboy & sleeps around a lot; I'll call him player. The love interest is not a player and has had his heart broken by athletes before and, at the beginning of the book, is ostensibly afraid of dating another athlete because they always cheat on him and has sworn jocks off. The love interest turns down the player initially, and the player doesn't really take no for an answer. He keeps pestering the LI to say yes and is pretty cocky about how he's going to get the LI to say yes. There are several times where his refusal to take no for an answer feels pretty boundary-crossing.
This book might be the single most egregious case of insta-love I've ever read. Insta-love is a trope I usually can tolerate somewhat okay, especially if the writing helps the falling-in-love process feel longer than it actually is if you look at a calendar. I'm willing to suspend disbelief and accept that relationships often move at a pace that I would be outraged by anyone in my life moving at. But wow. This book. Insta-love reached for the stars and found a whole new level.
Some background: the hockey player guy is a notorious playboy & sleeps around a lot; I'll call him player. The love interest is not a player and has had his heart broken by athletes before and, at the beginning of the book, is ostensibly afraid of dating another athlete because they always cheat on him and has sworn jocks off. The love interest turns down the player initially, and the player doesn't really take no for an answer. He keeps pestering the LI to say yes and is pretty cocky about how he's going to get the LI to say yes. There are several times where his refusal to take no for an answer feels pretty boundary-crossing.
A few examples to help illustrate what I mean, in case you are trying to judge if this book will be too insta-love for you or not.:
- I'm pretty sure the hockey player tells people (his team maybe?) he's seeing someone before the LI even says yes to a date.
- The player -- who has been a playboy up until now -- is like fully committed after one date.
They go on their first date maybe like a week into knowing each other. The next day, the player complains -- on several occasions -- that he doesn't like roadtrips anymore because his "two favorite things used to be hooking up and hockey, and now they are hockey and Alex" - At less than a month of knowing each other, they are acting like they've been dating for months or years. They're super serious about each other and trust each other implicitly.
At less than a month of knowing each other, the LI spends Christmas with the player's family and it's treated like the player is bringing home his boyfriend of a year for the first time. The player has the "oh shit I'm falling for him" realization (again, it's been less than a month since they met). On this same day, the LI comments that the view from the player's apartment is beautiful and the player replies that it "used to be his favorite view until he met the LI". - All of the side characters totally normalize the insta love and act like it's normal and great.
On Christmas, the player tells the LI he's falling for him. The next day, when the LI tells his best friend that the player said this, the bff responds very enthusiastically and then asks "So are you two official now?" and the LI says he "doesn't know but he's not seeing anyone else and he doesn't think the player is" which really just hammers in how insta love it is -- they're confessing love and they haven't even had a DTR talk
Also, the LI's best friend kind of totally disappeared from the plot in the second half of the book? To the point where the LI talks about how his brother and the player are his two most important favorite people in the world and literally doesn't even think about his best friend.