A review by kj468
Winging It by Morgan James, Ashlyn Kane

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I *adored* this book! I read it in two days flat and immediately bought the novella sequel (The Winging It Holiday Special). See end of review for TW/explanations. If you like hockey romances, definitely pick this book up!
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POV: dual 3rd person
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Representation: MLM, Gay MC, Bi MC, Bi awakening, MC POC (Dante)
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Tropes: hockey, sports gays, famous, outing, secret relationship, family included
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ratings: funny: 4 // ease: 5 // spice: 4 // plot: 5 // romance: 4 // overall: 5
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Likes:
  • Gabe and Dante have great chemistry; they're so *good* together, both in happy moments and in moments of tension. 
  • The pacing is great & I really liked how the drama rose and fell a couple of times throughout the book. 
  • Gabe's journey of growth, particularly regarding his relationship with the public & his desire to maintain privacy, first with his sexuality and then more generally with his life. It was great to watch Gabe blossom and open up with the team, really becoming a leader among people he initially felt closed off from. 
  • Dante adopting a cat and thrusting said cat on Gabe, and then them co-parenting the cat was one of the recurring highlights of the book (I love cats, give more muscley hockey guys cats please). 
  • The team PR person (and management in general, tbh) is wonderful! It's so comforting to read a book where a PR person doesn't act like being queer is a PR scandal & is truly on the side of the players.
  • The third-act drama is really well done and has a very satisfying resolution -- slow, mature, & not rushed through. It was great to see the MCs being happy together & solving their problems together *on page*, rather than just implying resolution or glossing over drama with a happy epilogue.

Dislike: 
  • This is petty, but the chapter style is soooo hard to navigate as an ebook. Instead of traditional chapters, it's only broken up into a few sections (like, 1st/2nd/3rd period). While I liked that structure for the book & acknowledge it was a cute way to break the novel into sections & theme it with hockey, it made it SO HARD to try to go back to a previous scene for reference or a reread, because the "chapters" are really long, and scenes get lost in them. I found myself having to bookmark scenes I thought would be important so I had some hope of finding them later. Also, it made it harder to keep track of whose POV I was reading. I think a better solution would have been to break the book into the cutesy sections & have traditional chapters separated with headings and POV switches within the sections. 
 
TW explanations:
Outing:
One of Gabe's exes outs Gabe against his will fairly early in the book. Gabe is upset by this, mainly due to the invasion of privacy & because he largely wasn't out to his team. The team and management are (on the whole) very supportive & management does not make him feel like he did anything wrong.

Homophobia:
One of the players on the team initially has a poor reaction to Gabe coming out, due to the player's cultural background and raising. The player realizes his errors, though, and goes to pretty significant lengths to repair his relationship with Gabe. Also, there's some general homophobia from the media & players/fans from other teams.

Religious Bigotry:
Dante's grandmother, who he is very close to, is extremely religious (I believe Catholic) & does not take Dante coming out as bi well, which causes Dante a lot of stress. There is a bittersweet resolution to this plot point.

Blood: hockey-typical amounts of blood
Injury detail:
 One of the main characters injures his arm/shoulder. There are moderate levels of details of the injury and recovery. 
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