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A review by bookish_notes
Offside by Ryan Loveless
4.0
I thought that the romance is cute, but what really got me sucked into the story was soccer. You can tell that this book was well-researched. It shows with how the author writes the matches, and even just small stuff off the field, that there's a good grasp of knowledge for the sport in general. I tend to watch a lot more European soccer, but reading about the MLS system is super interesting. The American soccer system makes very little sense since it's just so different when compared to how the entire rest of the world plays the sport. So, it's fascinating to read about what goes on with trading players, team dynamics, and the playoff system in the MLS.
I really loved the sports part of this book, and it's definitely why I bumped this a rating higher than I would have if this book just had romance at the forefront of the story. We only get the story from one POV, Adam's. It's not a bad thing, but I think I would have liked to seen some parts of the story from Colin's POV. The romance is very insta-love and I normally wouldn't be a fan of that at all, but Adam and Colin are really cute together. So, it kind of makes up for it.
Adam is a very high profile soccer player and the first gay player in the league. It put Adam into some interesting positions with the team and with the press. He mostly ignores it, but he's lived a pretty open life in LA and having to move to St. Louis is almost a culture shock to him. Colin has suspected he was gay for some time now and with Adam's presence on the team, it helps him realize who he is.
I'm not sure I liked Adam's way of almost forcing Colin out into scenarios he might not be comfortable in. I did find it hard to connect with any of the characters deeply, and it all feels very on the surface, as far as the relationship goes. The sex scenes were weird too. Not between the characters, but the decision to cut to black when it came up. In YA, I would have expected it. But these are characters in their twenties and if the characters are going to just explicitly think about the scenes later, why couldn't we have had that play out on the page? It's very strange.
Again, the soccer scenes were most excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed the research that went into this book. The romance was a bit lacking overall, but cute enough to be invested in the characters. The book is a short and fast read and I would recommend it as a good sports romance novel!
I really loved the sports part of this book, and it's definitely why I bumped this a rating higher than I would have if this book just had romance at the forefront of the story. We only get the story from one POV, Adam's. It's not a bad thing, but I think I would have liked to seen some parts of the story from Colin's POV. The romance is very insta-love and I normally wouldn't be a fan of that at all, but Adam and Colin are really cute together. So, it kind of makes up for it.
Adam is a very high profile soccer player and the first gay player in the league. It put Adam into some interesting positions with the team and with the press. He mostly ignores it, but he's lived a pretty open life in LA and having to move to St. Louis is almost a culture shock to him. Colin has suspected he was gay for some time now and with Adam's presence on the team, it helps him realize who he is.
I'm not sure I liked Adam's way of almost forcing Colin out into scenarios he might not be comfortable in. I did find it hard to connect with any of the characters deeply, and it all feels very on the surface, as far as the relationship goes. The sex scenes were weird too. Not between the characters, but the decision to cut to black when it came up. In YA, I would have expected it. But these are characters in their twenties and if the characters are going to just explicitly think about the scenes later, why couldn't we have had that play out on the page? It's very strange.
Again, the soccer scenes were most excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed the research that went into this book. The romance was a bit lacking overall, but cute enough to be invested in the characters. The book is a short and fast read and I would recommend it as a good sports romance novel!