thank you to putnam’s sons for young readers and penguin teen for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

now, this might be an unpopular opinion for this book. i honestly haven’t heard much about it which makes me think it kind of isn’t but this book just wasn’t it for me. from the insta-love, playing as rivals (when, how would be if ones a player and ones the referee of the sports). to the, their biggest personality traits comes from the dead family member card (which like, please. understand, i get it. i truly do.) but it was tough to care about these teens when i heard more about these family members that we have no reason to feel connected to.

i’m sorry, i really don’t have words for this one other than, i was bored, and honestly irritated the whole way through. i saw another review say it felt like a 1st draft and i would completely agree. the pacing was far off. they were already dating 10% into the book, and broken up for 30% of it, wallowing after each other. the characters were flat beyond their two main traits: (1) being a women trying to break into men-dominated sports and (2) having the hots for each other. maybe its a fault for the book being short (although for a book that’s in the 300 page length, there should have been more development) but i needed more before i could believe them saying ‘i love yous’.

and as they mention, these characters had main character syndrome. and that is not a good thing. they both honestly made decisions like there was no one else around them and it made it feel like i was pulling my teeth reading their stories. honestly, i would’ve been WAY happier reading about the side characters! their best friends had far more character outside of their love lives, and we barely see them!

basically, you get the gist that this was not the sports romance story for me. and truly what a shame since i usually eat those up!