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lezreadalot 's review for:
Gravity
by Tal Bauer
How this man thinks I am worthy of his inexhaustible heart, I will never know.
The bad news is that this is my least favourite Tal Bauer book so far. The good news is that it's still a pretty good book. I had my little issues with it, but it was so cute and so sweet, in ways I will never not love. We're following two hockey players, one with a bit more experience, one relatively new to the league, who meet up at a charity game and end up having electric chemistry both on and off the ice.
The first part of the book was my absolute favourite. I just adore hero worship to lovers. I adore seeing a relationship go from relatively shallow adoration to something a lot deeper, as the characters actually get to know one another. Hunter has practically worshipped Bryce for years, had his poster up on his walls, and so he is flabbergasted and really flattered when it turns out that Bryce has been watching his career also, and thinks that he's a really good player. I loved all of their time in Vegas, even though it was relatively short. One thing I will always say about Tal Bauer is that he's so good at writing that lightning in a bottle connection, that can really convince you that two characters form a deep bond, even if they've only known each other for a few days. And that totally happened with Bryce and Hunter. It helped that part of the connection was their mutual love of hockey, and just how well they played together. I still don't know much about hockey, but I loved seeing them play, hearing the descriptions of the different manoeuvres that were made possible because of their connection and how well they worked together.
Where the book falls down, in my opinion, is all the melodrama and cheese. I think this author can do cheesy in a way that's actually really cute and sweet, but unfortunately, in this case, I was just kind of impatient. In one of his previous books, I remember commenting that although it was really overly sentimental, it really worked for the characters, who were older guys. This, unfortunately, did not strike me the same way. The way we went from highs to lows felt really abrupt, and the romantic angst, while it lasted, felt so overblown. And then to make things worse, they actually got together as a couple pretty early on in the story, and the latter half was all sports drama and the development of the relationship. That's not something I would normally complain about; I can usually enjoy low-plot romances that are all about the characters connecting. But I was honestly so bored. I really wish that they hadn't gotten together so quickly, so that there would have at least been that romantic tension in the latter half of the book. The plot stuff that took up space was definitely emotional, but veered into the realm of melodramatic in a way I wasn't a fan of.
Also, for this being a team sport, I really didn't like the way that Bryce took up so much space. It's a silly thing to complain about, since he is one of the main characters. But it seemed like the team hinged on Bryce in a way that was a little unbelievable. When he was having a bad spell, the entire team was having a bad spell, and he has to take responsibility. When he got his game back, then the entire team started to play well again and they started winning. The latter half of the book emphasised the team aspect in the way I did like and was appreciative of, but in the earlier part of the book, it made it seem as Bryce was the only person on the team capable of leading them to win. In a way that went beyond him being their captain. I don't know if I'm expressing myself well, but something about it irked me.
And I have to mention all of the French. It's kinda cute that the author included some phrases in French, but it was done with a frequency that was just overkill, in my opinion. I'm glad that the author at least didn't employ that extremely clumsy and annoying tactic of saying something in another language and then immediately giving the reader the translation. At least he didn't do it often. But I did notice that some of the French seemed pretty dodgy. I'm not completely fluent and I'm not super familiar with Quebecois, so perhaps I'm not the best judge, but I noticed a lot of little grammatical errors, and a few times where it seemed like the phrases came straight off of Google translate. Not the worst thing in the world, but I have to admit it contributed to lowering my rating.
Still, I overall had a really good time with this, because Tal Bauer just knows how to write an emotional romance. Again, I did find all of the love declarations and dramatic confessions very sappy and cheesy, but it still tugged at my heartstrings. I think if this had been a bit more slow burn in the romance department, and if we'd gotten a few more scenes with the team as a whole, this might have worked a lot better for me. But still, it was a sweet romance, and a good read.