A pretty cute book with an original premise that took a turn at 80% and never recovered.

I’m taking a break from indie fiction and unestablished authors for a good long while after this one. I need to know a book has been stress tested by editors, agents and beta readers before being released to the masses. This book belongs on wattpad or some other amateur forum, to get much needed feedback from romcom readers.

Honestly, this book was a solid three star indie read for me up until the last 20%. It had potential, it had good ideas and I was thinking that there was much to like about it for readers who are tired of the misogyny, tired of the lack of diversity and just plain tired of the same baseball or hockey sports in contemporary. THIS IS ABOUT WRESTLING, and Glide seems to know her stuff. The writing was decent and flowed pretty well, there were significant typos but I had the arc copy so hopefully that was fixed on publication. But the concept was fresh and cute, until it wasn’t.

So let’s deep dive into this, I’m going to try to be constructive but let it be known, I did not like this and I do not recommend it. I’m doing this in bullet points because there is so much to address.

1. It was too contrived for me to really get into. I need a bit more depth and development in contemporary, mainly through showing me in character behaviour, what you are telling me in the narrative. For example: we are told often that the hero is not good at relationships and yet a more actualized, perfect try-hard man, I have yet to read. For the largest part of this book he’s beyond book boyfriend material veering into obviously written by a woman territory. He was nauseatingly ideal, until he wasn’t.

2. This was way too long for what it covered plot-wise. The middle was a slag to get through and this took me forever to read (over a month). I lost interest many times and would have not finished if I hadn’t had arc obligations towards it. It was 100 pages too many of sickly sweet slice of life stuff crammed with wrestling and sex scenes that I mainly skimmed over.

3. Neither character felt older than about 23 and yet I think they were in their 30s. I’d classify this in the NA genre, but I don’t think it’s meant to be. They were very unactualized and both had failure to launch vibes that fit way younger people.

4. The final 20%, the book went off the rails and really tanked it for me.

Spoiler

There are two incidences in the last part of the book that were huge betrayals and completely out of character for this idealized hero. Neither of which were addressed with proper contrition or solid resolution. I could not root for this couple after these and felt that the heroine ended up with him because he was her baby daddy and he was wealthy rather than that he was right for her or a good partner.

Firstly there is a scene where he abandons Elle at an awards dinner and goes back to his ex’s hotel room to talk, without checking with her first. It was awful. They sit on the bed, almost kiss, hug and call each other by their old pet names in the name of closure. This gave me major ick, this scene will bother so many romcom readers and I think it’s a mistake to include in the book. When he goes back to their hotel room she asks if he slept with his ex, he says no and she is totally cool with it. Huh? No heat for him on leaving her without telling her where he was going, no conversation about how this made her feel? Just ok, let’s have sex? Yikes. Bad scene. Bad choice. It doesn’t drive the plot forward, it doesn’t make the hero a better person to have this closure (see next point). This scene should be removed imo.

Secondly, the most contrived and jarring third act break up I’ve read in forever. It felt like it was inserted just for the sake of it and completely went against the established behaviour of the hero. He’s extremely emotionally intelligent, generous and supportive up until then, but then does a complete about face using personal photos of their relationship in his act without her consent and then gaslights her for being upset about it and uses her past conflict with her friend (that she confided with him) and her pregnancy emotions against her to convince her she is overreacting.

To make matters worse for me, after this happens her aunts give her terrible advice that amounts to ‘you don’t want to be alone with a baby, this guy is rich and bought you a house. Men are dumb, they need forgiven for their awful deeds, don’t be stubborn.’ Seriously? I hated all of this so much. He hadn’t even apologized so they don’t even know if he’s sorry at this point.

And lastly, they reconcile because SHE goes to HIM. He doesn’t seek her out, she goes to him because she’s worried about her pregnancy and she takes him back with minimal to no grovelling during labour, which is NOT the time to have relationship conversations.

So this book was a fail for me. I’d honestly love to see this author after she’s worked with a really good developmental editor and very honest beta readers. Writing as an indie author can’t be easy, and I love what she was trying to do here, but the execution was not good for me and knowing what I know about what romance readers are looking for, I can’t recommend this one.


Thanks to booksprout for the copy, my opinions are my own.