This has to be my favorite book of Mulders that I've read so far. Like all previous books in the series it's quick and quite light hearted, although this one got a little bit hevier that previous installments. My complaint that I didn't get to emotionally connect to the characters that I had for the previous books wasn't a problem here. I felt for both Nico and Anthony and it was especially fun to see their story as my first book by J.J. Mulder was Shots on Net which is Carter's book, and getting to know the people he looks up to better was a big part of the reasons I went back and read the Offsides books.

This was a sweet YA book although I hesitate to call it a romance. It's first and foremost a book following two former friends who are forced to volunteer at a dog shelter together after their animosity and refusal to talk things out starts messing with the rest of their Cross-country running team. There is romance in this book but very little so it didn't quite feel like a romance novel. It was very much necessary for Taylor and Mari to talk through their past and mend their friendship before they got in a relationship but we could have gotten some type of inclination that they still liked eachother in their internal monologs. I do think the way their friendship was repaired was done very well and that the way the initial conflict from when they were younger was entirely believable for two 13 year olds, who then didn't get to speak for 3 years until Mari moved back, would have handled it. I just would have liked to see a little more romance before the end. I was also slightly disappointed in how few dogs we met based on the cover but that is a minor thing.