#sports book review

[franticvampirereads]

Holy fuck. For all that it has a bright sunshiny name, this book was absolutely brutal and devastating. With each passing chapter and every horrific little revelation about the abuse that Jean suffered I wanted to scream and cry and rage on his behalf. I loved that Jean was able to find little bright spots of happiness in the smallest things like cooking with Cat, (begrudgingly) shopping with Laila, and having Jeremy as his partner. I also loved that they gave Jean the space he needed, respected privacy (for the most part), and accepted his boundaries (only pushing them when they absolutely had to).

There is so much to unpack with this book and I don’t think I caught everything that was happening in this read. So a reread is definitely needed before the next book comes out. But my god. This was probably one of the most emotionally devastating books I think I’ve ever read. It’s getting a solid five stars and I don’t know what I’m gonna do with myself until the next book comes out.

[jessread-s]

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review

✩☁️💜Review:

Henry Turner and Halle Jacobs are my everything!

“Daydream” follows Henry Turner, the captain of the hockey team, and Halle Jacobs, and aspiring author, as they strike a deal amongst themselves to overcome their respective challenges in a difficult year. In exchange for being Henry’s private tutor to help him maintain his good academic standing, he will give Halle new experiences to beat her writer’s block. They just need to stick to their rule book. Simple enough…right?

First and foremost — Hannah Grace, just in case anyone hasn’t told you this yet, “Daydream” WAS worth waiting for! It is beautifully written and will be held close to my heart from this point forward. 

As an eldest daughter, I heavily related to Halle and her people-pleasing tendencies. The loneliness that stemmed from taking on so much and putting everyone else first truly made my heart ache. 

Henry faces many obstacles of his own, like the pressure he puts on himself to be a good team captain. I appreciate the way Grace portrays his neurodivergence. It felt realistic and she handles it with care, which is so important in terms of representation. I enjoyed reading from his perspective and learned a lot from how he views the world and processes conflict. 

I adore Henry and Halle’s dynamic. Henry puts Halle first and Halle, having a sister with an ADHD diagnosis, makes every effort to understand Henry and his needs. She is very observant of his body language and gives him space when he needs to sort through his feelings. I especially love the pacing of this book surrounding Henry and Halle’s physical intimacy. Halle had a lot of anxiety surrounding it due to her previous relationship and Henry was so patient with her. He made sure to be respectful of her timeline, ask for consent, and check in with her. Throughout the book they maintain a healthy relationship by being open and honest with each other. Not only is it heartwarming, but it contributes to their insane chemistry! 

Cross-posted to: Instagram | Amazon | Goodreads | StoryGraph

[marissakumari]

Learning Formula 1 From Romance Novels | Downforce by Hannah Lily

Sports romance novels continue to get more and more popular, but how accurate are they? How much can you learn about the sport from reading a romance novel?

For the next review in this series, we're breaking down the Formula 1 Romance novel, Downforce by Hannah Lily. What worked, what didn't, how much you'd learn, and whether this can help you get your friends into the world of car go fast.

And, for the first time: what's more unbelievable, the sport, or the romance itself?

[moregraceful]

having trouble staying silly so made a medium impulse purchase of a slightly higher quality reloadable point and shoot than the one i got a target which had some strange warping i didn't like (like worse than a regular disposable camera, somehow...the shein-ification of target i think) for the roadtrip. i'm so harrowed by losing that entire roll of musty and will smith (shark) that i cannot bring myself to commit to the om-1 so i'm hoping that getting to blow through a roll or two on the roadtrip has promise of enough joy to get me through the next two weeks🥲

[kiiitasticbooks]

Like A Sports Anime, But Gayer | The Prospects by K.T. Hoffman Review

Hope is familiar territory for Gene Ionescu. He has always loved baseball, a sport made for underdogs and optimists like him. He also loves his team, the minor league Beaverton Beavers, and, for the most part, he loves the career he’s built. As the first openly trans player in professional baseball, Gene has nearly everything he’s ever let himself dream of—that is, until Luis Estrada, Gene’s former teammate and current rival, gets traded to the Beavers, destroying the careful equilibrium of Gene’s life.

Gene and Luis can’t manage a civil conversation off the field or a competent play on it, but in the close confines of dugout benches and roadie buses, they begrudgingly rediscover a comfortable rhythm. As the two grow closer, the tension between them turns electric, and their chemistry spills past the confines of the stadium. For every tight double play they execute, there’s also a glance at summer-tan shoulders or a secret shared, each one a breathless moment of possibility that ignites in Gene the visceral, terrifying kind of desire he’s never allowed himself. Soon, Gene has to reconcile the quiet, minor-league-sized life he used to find fulfilling with the major-league dreams Luis makes feel possible.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I received an ARC of The Prospects, which was published April 9, 2024.

I don’t know if anyone out there has had the same anime-to-books experience I have, but I’m sure a few readers will understand the sort of vibes I mean when I say this book feels like a sports anime.

And for those who don’t, I’ll try to explain it the best I can:

Sports anime are typically very character-focused, rather than focused on the sport itself. Sure, there are bits and pieces of the sport (it’s what our plot is based on), but it’s mostly about the characters growing into their abilities as players and connecting with their teammates.

Sports anime are also, typically, a little bit gay.

The Prospects also fits this sort of description. It’s undoubtedly a book about sports, being centered around a minor league baseball team, but it’s not about the sports as much as you’d think it is. It’s about Gene and Luis and their teammates, and the personal problems they have alongside the season. Love and family and careers and, above all, sticking together no matter what.

I really loved the LGBT elements in The Prospects. For one, we have the relationship between Gene and Luis, which I immediately fell in love with. Despite the two being “rivals” playing the same position, it was easy to tell, even early on, that these two were there for each other. They supported each other, even if they didn’t want to admit it, and that made for a very wholesome read.

But I also loved the way this book treated Gene being trans. As a trans reader myself, I’ve complained in the past about books just not getting it. Making their trans characters have these totally awful, completely transphobic experiences like that’s the only sort of experience a trans character can have. It’s hard to find trans stories where the main character happens to be trans, rather than the entire story being about them being trans, but The Prospects ended up being the perfect example of what I want in a story like this! Gene is trans, and maybe sometimes he has to deal transphobia or has issues with just existing as a trans person, but ultimately, that’s not his story in it’s entirety.

The best example of this is a scene in which Gene has to use his government name in order to sign up for something. In the scene, another character is nearby and, respecting Gene, turns to look away as he types in his government name. At no point do readers learn what Gene’s birth name is, nor is the scene made into a big deal, but the way the author treats it and the idea that sometimes, trans people don’t officially change their name on governmental records really stood out to me!

In all, I really liked The Prospects and the way this author wrote the story! Meeting these characters and seeing the way they interacted with each other–whether in the main romance or in friendships–made for a very enjoyable read, and I’ll be looking forward to K.T. Hoffman’s other works in the future!

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 Playing for Keeps Book Review 🦇

❓ #QOTD Soccer or baseball? ❓ 🦇 A baseball pitcher and umpire definitely aren't supposed to fall for each other, right? Especially not when star pitcher June and officiate-to-be Ivy are trying to go pro. Sometimes, life throws you a curveball, though. When Ivy is assigned as an umpire for June's elite club baseball team, they instantly clash on the field, only to find they have something in common: grief. Soon, they become enemies to friends to far more, despite the rules that prohibit them from dating each other. Will romance get in the way of them following their dreams?

💜 On the surface, Playing for Keeps seems like a fun, sweet young adult sapphic romance. The initial set-up gives us sharp, bittersweet enemies to lovers potential between a pitch and an umpire. Seems cute and fluffy, right? No one is that one-dimensional, though. Both Ivy and June are struggling with the loss of a loved one, balancing that on top of unrealistic expectations from their parents and the pressures they put on themselves to succeed. Add in the pressure you get from sports alone and it's enough to make anyone crumble. Ivy and June find happiness in each other, through stolen moments as they date in secret, wary that the conflict of interest between them will tear them apart. There's a potential for them to heal through one another, alongside one another, while learning how to navigate the external forces of loss while growing up.

💜 I loved that both Ivy and June were pursuing career paths that don't often make space for women. I would have liked to see more focus on that, though. It was sweet to see how the male players on the baseball team were quick to support June, but I expected to see more kickback (either from her team or other teams) to show (not tell us) how she struggled and still persevered.

💙 Unfortunately, the story is so rushed, so many scenes time-jumped, emotions mentioned but not illustrated, that you don't FEEL anything while reading this story. With the topic of grief, whether a character is processing it or trying to avoid it, readers should have an easy time sympathizing with the characters. Instead, the grief feels like a plot point, a reason for potential enemies to connect and eventually become more.

💙 Even with little jumps, the story lagged. Dugan has a tendency to pair selfless characters with less reasonable counterparts, which we certainly see between Ivy and June. Given that, it's difficult to root for both girls. Yes, they're both grieving, and yes, they both deserve happiness, but their actions are exhausting and (yes, I know it's YA) juvenile at times. Though the two girls had so much in common, the miscommunication trope constantly tugged them in opposite directions.

🦇 Recommended for fans of Some Girls Do, Home Field Advantage, and Cool for the Summer.

✨ The Vibes ✨ ⚾ Enemies to Lovers ⚾ Young Adult Romance ⚾ Sapphic Romance ⚾ Forbidden Love ⚾ Lesbian & Bi FMCs ⚾ Sports Romance ⚾ Grief ⚾ Pressure From Parents ⚾ Miscommunication

💬 Quotes ❝ Expecting it means I can prepare for it, plan for it, and figure out a way to keep my cool in its face. What I didn’t expect, though, was for there to be an extremely attractive girl throwing balls at about seventy-five billion miles per hour, striking out dumb boys left and right, like some kind of varsity, all-star Black Widow. ❞ ❝ There’s a lot of pressure on girls to conform, to become nice women, to do what’s expected. Smile more, whiten your teeth, lose the weight, don’t be too loud or too funny or too much. Make yourself less so the boys can feel like more. Don’t wear spaghetti straps or you might tempt them. Hold yourself accountable for the both of you, so they don’t have to. ❞

[skylilac]

this book is acruakly soooo disappointing

[terahreads]

Sapphic sports romance!!!!

[biandlesbianliterature]

Unsurprisingly, this isn’t a light read. It feels like an open wound: Delia especially is still hurting so much and hasn’t gotten closure on her trauma in going through conversion therapy. Eventually, though, we do see her begin to work through it, accompanied by the glimpses of the lives of the teenage girls she’s coaching. If you like to read character studies and quiet stories about working through trauma—and trying to lead a high school girls’ basketball team to glory, because that really is a big focus—I highly recommend this one. It’s a thoughtful, sometimes painful, but effective narrative, and it’s one that’s interesting to read after books like The Miseducation of Cameron Post, because this looks at not just the immediate horror, but the aftermath of being taught to hate yourself as a young person.

The Aftermath of Gay Conversion Camp: Tell the Rest by Lucy Jane Bledsoe was reviewed at the Lesbrary.

[in-dire-read]

Winners (Book Review)

Written by: Frederik Backman

"All the best players have a darkness inside them, that's why they end up the best, they think the darkness will disappear if they can just win enough times..."

4.5 / 5 Stars

Summary

As Beartown struggles to move forward, the destruction of Hed's ice rink re-ignites a dormant rivalry, which only quickly escalates. How far will the residents go to protect their hockey club?

Thoughts

The third book is extremely character-driven and explores multiple points of view. Each character's story is linked to another to explain a community's pride and ambition for their hockey club. Frederik Backman's writing style invokes strong emotional reactions, for he uses allegories and metaphors to emphasize his points. For example, Theo & Tails were excellent antagonists because they presented the greed of consumerism.

"We try to be men and never really know how. The tales about us who live here are the same sort of tales that are told about everyone, everywhere, we think we're in charge of the way they unfold but of course that happens unbearably seldom. They carry us wherever they want to go. Some of them will have happy endings, and some of them will end exactly the way we were always afraid they would."

"If you can't understand if the girl you're having sex with wants it or not, then you've never had fucking sex with a girl who wants it."

[franticvampirereads]

I think I might have found another contender for my top favorite book of the year! This was amazing and I just didn’t want to put it down. I had a stupidly happy smile on my face the whole time I was reading. And I might have been giggling to myself as well, because the characters in this are just so sweet and anxious and relatable. I’m also pretty sure that this is the fastest I’ve devoured a 400+ page physical book in a while. I genuinely don’t know what I’m going to do with myself while I wait for my copies of book two and three to get here.

I loved that this book has its roots in fanfic! And yes, in some of the broader strokes of the story telling you can tell which fandom gave this story its basic structure. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. In fact, I really loved that about this book, it felt like home even though these are completely new characters and a whole new story. Eli and Alex are both so sweet and anxious and I could read about them endlessly. I also absolutely adored the cast of side characters! I honestly can’t wait to dive into the next book. Like Real People Do is getting a solid five stars!

Reading Challenge Prompt Fills:

Alphabet Challenge: L

[jessread-s]

✩♟️💕Review:

*Thanks to @penguinteen and @ever-so-ali for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review*

Who knew Ali Hazelwood would be the one to get me interested in chess?!

“Check & Mate” follows Mallory Greenleaf, a former chess player working as a mechanic to support her family. Eager to leave the sport and the destruction it caused in the past, she plays one last charity tournament. Only, she manages to beat Nolan Sawyer, the current world champion and bad boy of chess. What follows is the opportunity to continue playing for sorely needed cash prizes and cross pawns with her fiercely attractive competitor. That is, so long as she can protect her family from the game that wrecked it. 

I want to begin by saying that I agree reviewers that are saying that this book is new adult and NOT young adult. The characters are 18 and 20. Mature language is used. Sexual content is referenced. Please keep these factors in mind before reading. 

Considering that this is an NA debut, Hazelwood is successful in branching out into this space. I adored Mallory, Nolan, and their rivals-to-lovers romance. The pacing of their relationship contributes to the ease with which I tore through this book. I feel like Mallory and Nolan truly started out as competitors too absorbed in their rivalry to entertain the idea of a relationship before finally giving in to their attraction. I devoured every single page. 

I also really loved the depth of the characters in this book! As the eldest child in my own family, I really connected to Mallory and the pressure she feels to take on more responsibilities, set an example for her younger siblings, and step in as another parent of sorts. 

As with her other books, Hazelwood explores the ways women are treated in male-dominated spaces. In this case, she does so by putting the chess world under a microscope. Going into the book, I knew next to nothing about chess, but Hazelwood made it easy to understand and digestible. It just worked and now I feel empowered to try my hand at it. 

Cross-posted to: Instagram | Amazon | Goodreads | StoryGraph

[bbpuckdrop]

book review: thrown off the ice by taylor fitzpatrick

OHHHHH BOY OH HOLY SHIT THIS FUCKING BOOK 15/5 STARS YOU OWN MY HEART NOW

okay so I was not planning to do any actual book reviews on this blog but this one really merits it. more detail under the cut but as a preview: PCS/resulting health issues, hockey romance, my heart was absolutely torn to shreds

Thrown Off the Ice by Taylor Fitzpatrick follows Liam and Mike. They're on the same team, but Liam is a rookie and Mike is a 30 year old enforcer. Their romance starts reluctant and hot and everything you'd expect from a forbidden contemporary romance that you have to keep hidden. Liam is high-energy and likes to push buttons. Mike likes his routine the way it is. Liam is a rising star. Mike is a traditional enforcer and that includes the physical repercussions that come with that role.

I won't go further into dynamic and plot but happy to discuss any potential CW/TW over messages.

holllllyyyyy shit this book just tore my heart out of my body and crumpled it up. I went through a whole travel pack of tissues and a few more. I still loved it so much. It may be hard for me to watch hockey quite the same way after reading this. Tore into me even more after rereading the dedication. Made me think a bit more about people like NolPat and Sid's post winter classic concussion (and so many others tbh. and my own sister.)

This book is part of a larger universe with many different reading orders but this the order I've gone in so far:

You Could Make a Life (published as an ebook on web retailers or available directly from the author in the uncut version [the one i read] here)

Giving In to the Influence (published here on Ao3)

Follow the North Star (published here on Ao3) (this ties in quite heavily with Thrown Off the Ice)

Vinny Gets a Life (published here on Ao3)

Thrown off the Ice (published as an ebook on web retailers or available here directly with a bunch of shorts included)

there are still so many stories in this universe but this is as far as I've gotten so far. if you search "you could make a life reading order" you'll probably get some answers about other ways you can take it

[melaniem54]

Review:  Playing the Man (Watkins Glen Gladiators Book 6) by V. L. Locey

Rating: 4.5🌈 V. L. Locey’s Watkins Glen Gladiators series is such a special warmhearted group of stories and characters.  Locey’s gift of being able to bring a fully immersive universe such as the Watkins Glen Gladiators AHL team to life, then fill it up with characters that a reader will find endlessly fascinating, entertaining (looking at you,Greck),amazingly diverse, and always…

[justme-victoria]

When you get to work up a sweat on and off the field...

sports romance

sapphic

teammates-with-benefits

locker room

grumpy/sunshine

alternating perspectives

This was one of my most anticipated releases for the year and Meryl certainly did not disappoint! Ya’ll know I can’t get enough of sports romances, and I’ve been absolutely loving sapphic romances, so combining my two favourites was just fabulous!

[marissakumari]

Elle Kennedy Teaches Us Hockey??

Hockey Romance Books have taken the internet by storm -- but as the library grows, so do female hockey fans. Can a romance novel teach you anything about hockey? And if it can, how accurate will it be?

On my quest to find the perfect sports romance novel that balances accurate sports and swoon worthy romance, today we're breaking down The Graham Effect by Elle Kennedy. This is the first book I've found where both the FMC and MMC are hockey players, which leads to some of my favorite conversation I've had in this review series so far.