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A review by dith_kusu
Skater Boy by A.E. Wasp
3.0
This was my least favorite of the three in this series I'd read so far. It's a sliding scale between 2.5 to 3 stars for me. Even in the first half of the story, while I liked Alex and Sergei's pairing, I wasn't fully feeling it. Then the second half came and I did not enjoy the turn the plot was taking.
Sergei was sweet from his previous depictions, and here he's still this adorable large Russian who speaks English, Quebecois French and Russian with varying degrees of fluency. I theoretically liked that he and Alex had this long standing bond of decades-long friendship at pivotal moments of their lives when Sergei first left Russia and worked abroad and billeted with Alex's family, and continued as best friends even after Alex left home and became a pro figure skater. I liked that aspect, but since we never saw this bond between them, no flashback scenes or further elaborations, it felt like starting a book without reading the previous beginning installment and we missed that bonding element between this friends-turned-lovers dynamic. We're dropped into their lives and personalities without fully knowing them and expecting to go along immediately, Alex with his weird two Sphinx cats and Sergei living alone in this huge house for all this time before Alex moved to Seattle.
And that their romance started so so soon after Alex came out of a rough breakup situation- his being a literal kept man with his sugar daddy/asshole boyfriend hiding a whole wife and being a disgusting emotionally abusive man hurling terrible things at Alex. And right after his moving in with Sergei, their relationship evolved from friends into friends with benefits and so soon after that, full boyfriends. Also, we get brief mentions and asides of their past that didn't feel fully incorporated into the character, like Sergei having left Russia because his young boyfriend was killed, and Alex never knew this after years, and mentions of Alex's past pro figure skating career and medals/accolades.
So there's the not quite connecting of the romance aspect between them, then right after the repeated scenes from previous book through Alex and Sergei's POV (Christmas), the whole babies plotline dropped in that veered the course. Of course when the start of the story mentions that Sergei had sperm donored biological twin children for his good family friend, a famous Russian crossover Hollywood actress, it's a brief mention that will be relevant later. I hated this plot direction, where the babies that Sergei just felt he was okay with being an uncle to before, he suddenly must, had to take in because his friend died suddenly. The way this was written about, made it seem like she was merely a tool for Sergei and Alex to now be parents to these twin boy and girl babies, her death wasn't even lingered on for long and I never really got her connection to Sergei. Wouldn't she have had a will and discussed Sergei's involvement, eventualities for the children beforehand? And through all this sudden upheaval, Alex is immediately like, I can't live without these babies, I love them so much, and so was Sergei? Everything following this I felt the plot was moving way too fast, and this instant family! direction just felt so forced. After the previous book where tumblr/real person fanfiction was mentioned, I'm certain this author probably wrote fanfiction of hockey players before, and this evolved from some fanfic plot.
And I haven't even mentioned the disgusting cheating husband sociopath plot with Alex having been sleeping with this man, whose wife Allie he ends up befriending, teaching their kids figure skating, and him NOT TELLING HER THE TRUTH once he knows the husband was a piece of shit! Then later Alex becomes proper friends with her, she says she ALREADY KNOWS, etc.? This was gross, and felt like this plotline and the babies plotline were smushed together with not attention and resolve given to either of them.
On the plus side, I did like all the side characters introduced here, and seeing the previous books' pairings popping up again. My favorite interaction was of Paul and Alex, them talking and bonding.
Sergei was sweet from his previous depictions, and here he's still this adorable large Russian who speaks English, Quebecois French and Russian with varying degrees of fluency. I theoretically liked that he and Alex had this long standing bond of decades-long friendship at pivotal moments of their lives when Sergei first left Russia and worked abroad and billeted with Alex's family, and continued as best friends even after Alex left home and became a pro figure skater. I liked that aspect, but since we never saw this bond between them, no flashback scenes or further elaborations, it felt like starting a book without reading the previous beginning installment and we missed that bonding element between this friends-turned-lovers dynamic. We're dropped into their lives and personalities without fully knowing them and expecting to go along immediately, Alex with his weird two Sphinx cats and Sergei living alone in this huge house for all this time before Alex moved to Seattle.
And that their romance started so so soon after Alex came out of a rough breakup situation- his being a literal kept man with his sugar daddy/asshole boyfriend hiding a whole wife and being a disgusting emotionally abusive man hurling terrible things at Alex. And right after his moving in with Sergei, their relationship evolved from friends into friends with benefits and so soon after that, full boyfriends. Also, we get brief mentions and asides of their past that didn't feel fully incorporated into the character, like Sergei having left Russia because his young boyfriend was killed, and Alex never knew this after years, and mentions of Alex's past pro figure skating career and medals/accolades.
So there's the not quite connecting of the romance aspect between them, then right after the repeated scenes from previous book through Alex and Sergei's POV (Christmas), the whole babies plotline dropped in that veered the course. Of course when the start of the story mentions that Sergei had sperm donored biological twin children for his good family friend, a famous Russian crossover Hollywood actress, it's a brief mention that will be relevant later. I hated this plot direction, where the babies that Sergei just felt he was okay with being an uncle to before, he suddenly must, had to take in because his friend died suddenly. The way this was written about, made it seem like she was merely a tool for Sergei and Alex to now be parents to these twin boy and girl babies, her death wasn't even lingered on for long and I never really got her connection to Sergei. Wouldn't she have had a will and discussed Sergei's involvement, eventualities for the children beforehand? And through all this sudden upheaval, Alex is immediately like, I can't live without these babies, I love them so much, and so was Sergei? Everything following this I felt the plot was moving way too fast, and this instant family! direction just felt so forced. After the previous book where tumblr/real person fanfiction was mentioned, I'm certain this author probably wrote fanfiction of hockey players before, and this evolved from some fanfic plot.
And I haven't even mentioned the disgusting cheating husband sociopath plot with Alex having been sleeping with this man, whose wife Allie he ends up befriending, teaching their kids figure skating, and him NOT TELLING HER THE TRUTH once he knows the husband was a piece of shit! Then later Alex becomes proper friends with her, she says she ALREADY KNOWS, etc.? This was gross, and felt like this plotline and the babies plotline were smushed together with not attention and resolve given to either of them.
On the plus side, I did like all the side characters introduced here, and seeing the previous books' pairings popping up again. My favorite interaction was of Paul and Alex, them talking and bonding.