I read this in one day bc I had a very long flight and also I liked them! I really enjoyed the two MCs being atypical in romance in general but also specifically in the world of hockey//sports. Great discussions of the toll human bodies endure to pay sports, which are like a silly thing to wreck yourself over for the rest of your life. Lmao I have taken a surprising anti-sports stance in this review, despite being fully aware I am voluntarily reading a sports romance.

I also liked that Ryan’s anxiety and performance issues aren’t just solved immediately after he falls in love - certainly they’re better but it wasnt like “the power of love has cured his anxiety!!!” which does happen in books but is simply not reality!! And I liked that this was one aspect of Ryan and Fabian didn’t…react poorly or make it seem like a burden. Fabian just calmly tried various things that might work for Ryan. Lol the bar is in the ground but I enjoyed that part a lot!!

Also I liked that there wasn’t the huge pressure to remain in the closet like in most sports romances. No long drawn out conversations about what this will mean for his career. Ryan was just out and that was that. Perhaps a little bit too easily tbh and it was literally never mentioned again by any of his teammates but that’s fine. I don’t like when the literal entire plot is a fear of coming out which is VALID but also I could use other plot points.

As always, it does feel like Rachel Reid tosses in marginal diversity for the sake of it (Fabian is Lebanese which is mentioned precisely once and then never again) and doesn’t really explore this aspect of her characters’ identities.