i cannot believe andrew and neil somehow biologically engineered a son to whom they genetically passed on every psychological issue they've ever had and some they didn't even get to consider, only to lose him in a stampede on the night right before christmas at the mall, and for him to consequentially be found by a gross ex hockey goalie who hid him for the rest of his life and raised him as if he was his own, except with no love, and nobody even thought to tell me. laurent please go back to your real parents, andrew and neil miss you so very much

i loved this little baby. im more neutral on isaac (i like him, dont get me wrong) but laurent simply gets all my uwus. hes so... sweet? even though hes a bit of a bitch? just the way i like em!!!

overall, i liked the book! solid! very entertaining!! here are my qualms: its a little TOO quick paced. if youre gonna give me an enemies to lovers, i feel like you HAVE to give me the slow burn. right??? its been three pages why are we making out guys?? guys??? where is the tension where are the longing stares wheres the confusion between anger and horniness where is the DEpTH! is EVERY AUTHOR too shy to blueball me like god intends????? it being so qucik and easy makes the moments that are supposed to be big very... anticlimactic. and also, with the sheer amount of trauma these two are working through, a pace this quick feels a bit like a... a recovery speedrun. like, SURELY it wasnt that wasy for them right? SURELY it took more of them!! and i wanna know about it!!!

heres something thats not as much a qualm as an observation: yall i dont know how books this smutty get published. frankly fanfiction has me a little desensitized so i dont know why it even came as a shock, but like. this gets published???? by actual publishing houses??? which like, erotica exists so this is a no brainer (and this is also not erotica, so theres that), but somehow im still surprised that i read the word 'cock' with more frequency in a published book than i do in ao3. who woulda thunk!

so. in general this truly feels like a spedran (is that a word? now it is), cheesier version of All For The Game. and yes, i do say cheesier because i do recall nora's writing being very... flat? almost dry, but in this lil number we literally get a "he expelled a breath he didn't know he was holding", so, do i need to say more? but very AFTG regardless, in the vibes. at some point, one of my notes literally just says "is laurent also moriyama property somehow?" and you know what? im right and i should say it. i also have another note about their dynamics that just says "minyard/josten kinda beat", which is also true.

other little qualms: super minor inconsistencies, and also some of that thing authors have me SO USED TO where the characters do the stupid thing that nobody in their right mind would do, and that is SO out of character, simply for the drama of it all (im inclined to believe nobody would yell "you're not my dad!!!" at the man who literally saved you from being forced into the pornographic industry, housed and fed you since, and is currently doing his level best to protect your boyfriend who, we must admit, does one hell of a job of being unlikeable). and i just cant get behind that, because it breaks the immersion! also, on some aspects, a bunch of tell-dont-show, which... weak. im mad! give me the juice!

anyways my favorite character aside from laurent is the old lady who had both a husband and several boyfriends that they shared. absolutely iconic, queen shit. and though i complained long and hard about several points, as i got yall used to, i actually really liked it! its fun. i LOVE my traumatized sports gays. its VERY HARD to write a traumatized-sports-gays that doesnt make me go absolutely feral. and against all odds, i would have actually liked more hockey! anyway when laurent calls isaac ange? i must simply combust. my love for laurent is Out The Roof. i simply Love Him. i want nothing but the best for him and i shall kiss his nose. that is all.