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A review by mama_mia98
Icebreaker by Hannah Grace
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
2.0
Oh boy do I have a lot of feelings and thoughts about this book. Unfortunately I let booktok persuade me into checking this out and I cannot believe that this book has as big of following on that app as it does. While this is not the worst book I have read, there are some major red flags within the story and characters of this book that I couldn’t ignore while reading. As with many smutty romance novels, the two main characters are extremely predictable and are walking romance tropes. With a possessive tall man and a petite and hot headed short girl, I’m sure you can imagine how their relationship develops and what their sex life entails. While the premise of this novel was fun at times, there were particular smut scenes and character choices that leaned why too heavily into toxic and harmful ideologies that I just can’t get over.
*SPOILERS*
Content Warning: Discussion of non-consensual sex acts, kink/smut, eating disorders and emotional abuse.
Listen, I’m not here to get on anyone for enjoying a romance novel with smut, I myself have read romance novels with smut and enjoyed them. What I will give people a hard time for praising a smut scene where the main characters non-consensually have sex in front of all of their friends. Booktok will not stop taking about the Uber scene in this book and how great it is….. having your characters openly have sex in the back of an Uber with all of their drunk friends and the Uber driver in the car is fucking weird. While voyeurism is a kink that is often present in smutty romance, it is truly insane to have a scene where your characters have sex right next to their drunk and non consenting friends/Uber driver and play it off as just a hot little secret between the two of them. Having sex in front of people who are intoxicated and did not consent to participate in that is not hot, it’s sexual harassment and it’s gross. You can incorporate kink into your smut scenes all you want, but you have make sure that you are doing so in a way that doesn’t perpetuate sexual harassment and ignore consent. This book is clearly trying really hard to lean into the whole “bratty /dominate” trope but does so in a way that is just extremely toxic and also very annoying.
Along with the questionable smut, this book has one of the worst characters I have ever read about and with that character, the author handles the topic of eating disorders so poorly. Aaron (the main girls skating partner and friend/roommate) is so emotionally abusive and manipulative. This man not only talks down to Anastasia and makes her question her own abilities as an athlete, but he also controls what she eats and is constantly talking about her body and weight in an extremely manipulative way. This man LITERALLY created Anastasia an extremely restrictive meal plan that he ensures she follows, even commenting on her calorie intake and how her weight was impacting their ability to compete as figure skaters. Anastasia is literally tracking her calories for this man and when Nate (love interest) rightfully questions Aaron’s intention’s, Anastasia completely blows this off as Nate being jealous. This reaction from Anastasia makes sense initially since she’s been living and working with Aaron for so long she sees him as a trusted friend who would never possibly cause her harm. But for the author to then have Anastasia spend the majority of the book defending Aaron continuously to Nate even after she has discovered the horrible things he’s said behind her back feels like an extremely strange way to portray this situation. To write Aaron as so manipulative and controlling and then have Anastasia continuously make Nate’s concerns about Aaron’s behavior about Nate’s jealousy really undermines the seriousness of Aaron’s manipulation and abuse and Nate’s genuine concern over his girlfriend in this story. You can have a conversation around toxic masculinity and jealousy in romance, but that doesn’t necessarily work when the other man is truly an awful and abusive piece of shit causing immense harm to the main girl in the story.
On the topic of eating disorders in general, I don’t love how this book handled such a sensitive topic. There’s a lot of Anastasia just describing how she’s not eating and how she’s restricting herself which can be super harmful for people with eating disorders to read about, especially with no content warning for this book. Also there’s no mention of Anastasia talking to her therapist about any of her disordered eating or difficult thoughts around food as she tried to heal even though the book makes a very large point about her going to therapy and being really good at communicating with and trusting her therapist. Having Nate be the one to “fix” her and create a new meal plan for her and encourage her to eat better kinda feels like we’re romanticizing eating disorders and undermining how traumatic and life altering they can be. While having support during the healing process can be extremely important, an eating disorder is not something that your boyfriend can just “save” and “fix” you from. There is so much personal effort and hardship that goes into struggling with and overcoming an eating disorder, and this book uses that struggle to fulfill a fantasy about some man taking care of their girlfriend in a way that makes this books coverage of this topic very shallow and self-serving.
I didn’t want this book to be bad, if fact I when into this hoping I would enjoy it. But unfortunately I just couldn’t get over this authors choices around these topics. Smutty romance novels don’t need to romanticize eating disorders or non-consensual sex acts to be hot and enjoyable. There are better smutty romance novels out there…. I promise.
Content Warning: Discussion of non-consensual sex acts, kink/smut, eating disorders and emotional abuse.
Listen, I’m not here to get on anyone for enjoying a romance novel with smut, I myself have read romance novels with smut and enjoyed them. What I will give people a hard time for praising a smut scene where the main characters non-consensually have sex in front of all of their friends. Booktok will not stop taking about the Uber scene in this book and how great it is….. having your characters openly have sex in the back of an Uber with all of their drunk friends and the Uber driver in the car is fucking weird. While voyeurism is a kink that is often present in smutty romance, it is truly insane to have a scene where your characters have sex right next to their drunk and non consenting friends/Uber driver and play it off as just a hot little secret between the two of them. Having sex in front of people who are intoxicated and did not consent to participate in that is not hot, it’s sexual harassment and it’s gross. You can incorporate kink into your smut scenes all you want, but you have make sure that you are doing so in a way that doesn’t perpetuate sexual harassment and ignore consent. This book is clearly trying really hard to lean into the whole “bratty /dominate” trope but does so in a way that is just extremely toxic and also very annoying.
Along with the questionable smut, this book has one of the worst characters I have ever read about and with that character, the author handles the topic of eating disorders so poorly. Aaron (the main girls skating partner and friend/roommate) is so emotionally abusive and manipulative. This man not only talks down to Anastasia and makes her question her own abilities as an athlete, but he also controls what she eats and is constantly talking about her body and weight in an extremely manipulative way. This man LITERALLY created Anastasia an extremely restrictive meal plan that he ensures she follows, even commenting on her calorie intake and how her weight was impacting their ability to compete as figure skaters. Anastasia is literally tracking her calories for this man and when Nate (love interest) rightfully questions Aaron’s intention’s, Anastasia completely blows this off as Nate being jealous. This reaction from Anastasia makes sense initially since she’s been living and working with Aaron for so long she sees him as a trusted friend who would never possibly cause her harm. But for the author to then have Anastasia spend the majority of the book defending Aaron continuously to Nate even after she has discovered the horrible things he’s said behind her back feels like an extremely strange way to portray this situation. To write Aaron as so manipulative and controlling and then have Anastasia continuously make Nate’s concerns about Aaron’s behavior about Nate’s jealousy really undermines the seriousness of Aaron’s manipulation and abuse and Nate’s genuine concern over his girlfriend in this story. You can have a conversation around toxic masculinity and jealousy in romance, but that doesn’t necessarily work when the other man is truly an awful and abusive piece of shit causing immense harm to the main girl in the story.
On the topic of eating disorders in general, I don’t love how this book handled such a sensitive topic. There’s a lot of Anastasia just describing how she’s not eating and how she’s restricting herself which can be super harmful for people with eating disorders to read about, especially with no content warning for this book. Also there’s no mention of Anastasia talking to her therapist about any of her disordered eating or difficult thoughts around food as she tried to heal even though the book makes a very large point about her going to therapy and being really good at communicating with and trusting her therapist. Having Nate be the one to “fix” her and create a new meal plan for her and encourage her to eat better kinda feels like we’re romanticizing eating disorders and undermining how traumatic and life altering they can be. While having support during the healing process can be extremely important, an eating disorder is not something that your boyfriend can just “save” and “fix” you from. There is so much personal effort and hardship that goes into struggling with and overcoming an eating disorder, and this book uses that struggle to fulfill a fantasy about some man taking care of their girlfriend in a way that makes this books coverage of this topic very shallow and self-serving.
I didn’t want this book to be bad, if fact I when into this hoping I would enjoy it. But unfortunately I just couldn’t get over this authors choices around these topics. Smutty romance novels don’t need to romanticize eating disorders or non-consensual sex acts to be hot and enjoyable. There are better smutty romance novels out there…. I promise.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, and Eating disorder