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A review by booklover_zzz
Running with Lions by Julian Winters
4.0
3.8 Stars
The premise of the book is very cute. The characters were amazing and lovable. Their relationships were funny and lovely. ❤️ The characters were my favorite part of the book tbh. I also love the moral and lesson of the story of how athletes should be allowed to come out and be who they want to be. I think that is really important especially in this day in age, where athletes and celebrities are told they shouldn’t come out for the sake of having a successful career.
My brother plays competitive club soccer and shares these characters love for the sport, jokes around all the time but is serious on the field, ambition to play competitively and struggles with sports injuries as well. I enjoyed reading that part of the story because the sports aspect of it is not all BS.
Even though the overall story was great. It felt unfinished. Call Me By Your Name is a shorter LGBT+ book than this novel and packs a longer timeline and more details into it. I was expecting something like that (but YA & sports style) and was let down. I would have appreciated more details. Things seemed rushed at times. Yes, I wanted the fluff and kissing and sex to happen but...it was all just too fast, especially for two boy who hate each other and want nothing to do with each other at the very beginning.
I felt like I needed more justification for why characters did what they did and felt the way they felt, because I wasn’t fully convinced with the acceptance that they felt or did what they felt/did because they wanted to. It read almost too perfect at times. I was expecting a bigger conflict to arise or to be surprised by some sort of plot twist but nothing ever came. Another big upset. I guess I’d dub this a close to smutty, sporty fan fiction crossover of Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda and the All for the Game Trilogy. So, aka another gay rom-com but with a ting of sports drama.
Whoever the edited this book at Duet (an imprint of Interlude Press) did a terrible job. This book read like it needed another one or two more rounds of editing, which was one of the things that bothered me the most. The same few stupid mistakes were made thought the novel too, so it wasn’t anything that couldn’t have gone unnoticed. It should read smoother. It shouldn’t have so many awkward sentences. The repetition should be necessary not feel as if it’s there to be there or like the author couldn’t come up with anything better to say. Sometimes the repetition and awkward sentences together made me feel stupid because they repeated stuff I already knew in an awkward way. This book is rated 16+ so you’d think they’d stay away from stuff like that. Usually that tends to happen in YA 12+ which I understand but all I thought was “Really?!” every time it came up.
Also they should get a someone to check their foreign language usage because some the Spanish read like it had just been translated by Google Translate (a little embarrassing). These may seem like harsh comments but I think it was something that was overlooked and noticeable. It needed to be pointed out.
If you like the All for the Game Trilogy by Nora Sakavic, you’ll love this book. There were so many times I found myself comparing characters (and sometimes the plot) in A Foxhole Court to characters in this book.
The premise of the book is very cute. The characters were amazing and lovable. Their relationships were funny and lovely. ❤️ The characters were my favorite part of the book tbh. I also love the moral and lesson of the story of how athletes should be allowed to come out and be who they want to be. I think that is really important especially in this day in age, where athletes and celebrities are told they shouldn’t come out for the sake of having a successful career.
My brother plays competitive club soccer and shares these characters love for the sport, jokes around all the time but is serious on the field, ambition to play competitively and struggles with sports injuries as well. I enjoyed reading that part of the story because the sports aspect of it is not all BS.
Even though the overall story was great. It felt unfinished. Call Me By Your Name is a shorter LGBT+ book than this novel and packs a longer timeline and more details into it. I was expecting something like that (but YA & sports style) and was let down. I would have appreciated more details. Things seemed rushed at times. Yes, I wanted the fluff and kissing and sex to happen but...it was all just too fast, especially for two boy who hate each other and want nothing to do with each other at the very beginning.
I felt like I needed more justification for why characters did what they did and felt the way they felt, because I wasn’t fully convinced with the acceptance that they felt or did what they felt/did because they wanted to. It read almost too perfect at times. I was expecting a bigger conflict to arise or to be surprised by some sort of plot twist but nothing ever came. Another big upset. I guess I’d dub this a close to smutty, sporty fan fiction crossover of Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda and the All for the Game Trilogy. So, aka another gay rom-com but with a ting of sports drama.
Whoever the edited this book at Duet (an imprint of Interlude Press) did a terrible job. This book read like it needed another one or two more rounds of editing, which was one of the things that bothered me the most. The same few stupid mistakes were made thought the novel too, so it wasn’t anything that couldn’t have gone unnoticed. It should read smoother. It shouldn’t have so many awkward sentences. The repetition should be necessary not feel as if it’s there to be there or like the author couldn’t come up with anything better to say. Sometimes the repetition and awkward sentences together made me feel stupid because they repeated stuff I already knew in an awkward way. This book is rated 16+ so you’d think they’d stay away from stuff like that. Usually that tends to happen in YA 12+ which I understand but all I thought was “Really?!” every time it came up.
Also they should get a someone to check their foreign language usage because some the Spanish read like it had just been translated by Google Translate (a little embarrassing). These may seem like harsh comments but I think it was something that was overlooked and noticeable. It needed to be pointed out.
If you like the All for the Game Trilogy by Nora Sakavic, you’ll love this book. There were so many times I found myself comparing characters (and sometimes the plot) in A Foxhole Court to characters in this book.