Icebreaker

I feel like this would be real life

3,2/5

Jakby wyciąć z niej połowę - totalnie nic by się nie zmieniło. Przez jakieś 60% tej książki narzekałam na bohaterów i kompletny brak fabuły.

Ps. Anastasia zmień terapeutę i nurt, bo clearly nie widać żadnych postępów. Nate zachowywał się bardziej dojrzale od ciebie.

This book was mildly infuriating.

I gotta watch Yuri On Ice to cleanse the palate

Corny but cute, exactly what you’d expect this book to be.

FMC was not likeable. MMC felt forced into a role of labrador/green flag bf. The writing annoyed me at the best of times, the smut was lackluster at best. I'm honestly just surprised I even managed to force myself to finish reading this especially after bingeing Elle Kennedy Off Campus before diving into this

3.5 stars. It was decent. The pacing was a bit slow and some parts of the book dragged. Honestly, I think the book could have been a lot shorter with much the same content if the pacing was a bit faster and their was a bit less smut which halfway through the book was just repetitive and really excessive (will talk about more).

I didn’t really like Anastasia at least in the beginning of the book she seemed determined to not make anything work and determined to hate all hockey players and she was really stubborn about it for a long time. She was also a bit overdramatic and it got annoying. She did get less annoying the more the book went on.

Nathan was a lot better. He wanted to make the problems work for everyone and have as little conflict as possible. He was sweet and was the only thing that made this book worth reading. Without Nathan I would probably give this book 1 star.

The plot line (which i’m guessing is supposed to be her relationship with Aaron) wasn’t bad. It was predictable and a lot of elements were cliche but overall it felt mostly realistic. My only problem with it was certain parts dragged too much but that’s just a problem with the pacing. Although, the fact that I’m not sure what the plot actually is after reading the book isn’t a great sign. If the plot was actually supposed to be her relationship with her abusive skating partner then it was just buried under too much smut.

The writing style was very confusing. The book is written in present tense but sometimes their were whole chapters in past tense saying what happened an hour earlier or something which makes no sense because why can’t they just be in present tense like the rest of the book and then have the next chapter starts an hour later. Sometimes the writing would also over-describe something and it became hard to follow. I can’t really explain it but it just didn’t flow and I found myself constantly rereading paragraphs because I was confused the first time.

Finally, I have to mention the amount of smut in this book. For their first few hookups she would only hookup with him when she was drunk. He literally said “you only like me when you’re drunk and horny”. And this is another book that thinks public sex is “so hot”. They hookup in AN UBER WITH FIVE OF THEIR FRIENDS IN THE CAR because their friends were “too drunk to notice”. For some reason the FMC never wore underwear to public outings even when she was going TO SOMEONES BIRTHDAY. And then when the main couple finally got together whenever they were alone they were having sex. From the FMC’s POV it actually said that whenever their conversations got hard she would just start seducing him to end the conversation. For a book that talks a lot about how important communication is this some pretty great communication happening. And then, about halfway through the book they were just having sex every other chapter and it was just repetitive and really boring.

Overall the book was fine but the pacing was sometimes too slow, the FMC was really annoying at first, the plot was a bit predictable and the writing got confusing and the smut was bad and excessive.

I did not like this.

If I were to take a shot everytime I cringed while reading this book, they'd have to pump my stomach out in the emergency room from alcohol poisoning after the first 20 pages and I am genuinely surprised and impressed with myself to have gone through even 31% of it.

2.5/5⭐️

All I have to say, is every part of this 2.5 stars is for Nate Hawkins and Nate Hawkins ONLY.

Anastasia was actually so obnoxious. There’s a difference between playing hard to get and what she was doing trying to make him jealous. It was weird.

And her going back with Aaron??? PLEASE. Sure, she was trying to see the best in him but like COME ON. After everything he said about her? no way that was realistic. But I guess that’s the point of a story- it’s not real.

Awful book full of "mature" friends with benefits. So ridiculous. Horrible characterizations and zero plot besides sex.