A review by kj468
Lucky Bounce by Cait Nary

slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No

2.0

Let me start off this review with the disclaimer that I should have DNF'd this, and I knew I should probably DNF it about 20% in but I stubbornly kept at it anyway. So, sorry in advance for the negativity, if this is your cup of tea, then that's great! Enjoy what you like!

Here's a non-comprehensive list of why it wasn't my cup of tea though:

  • The writing style was really not for me. It could be my rampant, unmedicated ADHD clashing with the style, to be fair. I had a really hard time slogging through all the extraneous details and unusual punctuation choices. The author had a tendency to give a sentence (and then more information) (and then more information) and my brain just couldn't process it smoothly. Two chapters in, I knew it wasn't for me, but I'd seen good reviews and chose to keep going anyway, thinking I'd get used to it. That was the wrong call.
  • The author heavily favored telling over showing, to the point that by the time the couple was starting to sleep together and date, they still felt like strangers to me, because I hadn't really seen any on-page interactions -- it was mostly brushed over with paragraphs like "they talked about x and y and LI was grumpy and MC was enamored". At the end of the book, I still have no idea what these two characters like to talk about to each other. And it wasn't just relationship moments that were skimmed over with telling, either; interactions with the LI's family, the MC's coworker, the MC's best friend, etc were all skimmed over. I felt like I was reading a fairly detailed outline of a book, rather than the finished product.
  • The least amount of hockey in a hockey romance I've ever read. I think I'd see more hockey flipping channels on a... whatever night of the week hockey comes on. There are a few games that the non-hockey player attends, and it's certainly mentioned that the LI is a hockey player a lot, and the MC mentions his love for hockey a lot... but at the end of the day, the hockey thing doesn't really play any significant role in the plot. The LI could have played just about any other sport, or even just been rich, and nothing about this book would change.
  • There wasn't much plot, and I say that as someone who loves low-angst, low-plot, romance-heavy books. There's lots of things that could have been the workings of a substantial plot -- the transition of the LI's daughter to living with him, the LI's migraine disorder, the LI's family having mixed opinions on him dating as a new father, the MC being the LI's daughter's teacher -- but none of them are actual plot points. They're all just kind of... things that occur in the book, largely in the background except for a sentence or two where they're brought closer to the foreground. I kind of feel like I read 250 pages of air.
  • The best friend and his girlfriend, as well as the coworker that the MC is friends with, basically disappear once the MC starts seeing the LI. It made them -- and the MC -- feel even flatter as characters

TW: The author uses the f-slur once, which is listed as a warning at the beginning of the book, but it felt like it was really not necessary to have included. Like, it wasn't in quotes from the homophobic high schooler, it was just plopped into the narrative in the MC's internal thoughts almost... naturally. It didn't feel great. Also, the MC's family is really mediocre about him being gay -- in the sense that they didn't kick him out (congrats on that I guess) but also refer to it as a phase and a lifestyle and clearly aren't approving.  The MC doesn't go home for the holidays anymore because of it, though he does have half hour long calls with his mom twice a month. So if that's a sensitive topic for you, take that into consideration before deciding to pick this book up. 
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