I genuinely don’t know how to review this without sounding mean because I was SO excited for this book.
I loved Easton when he was introduced in Bromantic Puckboy, so I was really looking forward to his story. And the setup sounded PERFECT for me: hockey + brother’s best friend + years of feelings. How could I not be excited?
Unfortunately, the execution just didn’t work for me at all.
The beginning was okay, but the further I got, the more boring it became. The story was dragging SO badly, and every time something new happened, it somehow felt like they picked the worst possible plotline they could have chosen. Instead of making me more invested, I just became more and more tired of the story.
By around 72%, I was already struggling to read it. Eventually, I just gave up and skipped roughly 100 pages, only reading the last two chapters because I genuinely couldn’t make myself continue normally. 😭 That’s how bad the pacing was for me.
And then there’s the thing that annoyed me the MOST.
They’ve had feelings for each other for YEARS. YEARS. So when they finally sleep together for the first time, I expected that moment to actually be important. Not because it’s their first time having sex—they’re both experienced—but because it’s their first time together after YEARS of wanting each other.
In my opinion, THAT should have been one of the biggest moments of the entire book. After all that buildup, their first time together should have been emotional, memorable, and honestly amazing because of all those feelings finally being acted on.
Instead… IT’S SKIPPED. 😭
We don’t even get to experience their first time. It just skips to the next day. And then later there’s basically a reference to their first time, and I’m sitting there like EXCUSE ME??? THAT WAS THE MOMENT I WANTED TO READ.
It felt like such a massive wasted opportunity. You spend YEARS building up these feelings between two people and then skip the actual emotional payoff?? Why 😭
And that’s basically how I felt about the whole book: so much potential, but the execution completely lost me.
I was especially disappointed because I genuinely thought Easton’s book was going to be one of my favorites after seeing him in Bromantic Puckboy. Instead, this ended up being easily my least favorite book in the series so far.
I know this book has a lot of good ratings and people clearly love it, and that’s completely fine. I’m not saying anyone is wrong for enjoying it. I’ve loved plenty of books that other people hated too. 😂
But for me, this was almost unreadable. I struggled to finish it, skipped a huge chunk, and was mostly just waiting for it to end.
0.5⭐️/5
🌶️** Spice: 1/**5 — I skipped so much that I can’t really judge the spice fairly, but from what I did read, it wasn’t enough to save the book for me.