BUCKLE UP. this is an extremely long review but if one (1) person reads it, it will have been worth my torturous experience.

i don’t usually write reviews for books i dnf, but since i made it over halfway through this one, i think i have a pretty good grasp on the writing, characters, plot etc. that being said, this book is so so so so bad. i wanted to like it!!!! i did!!! i even persevered longer than i would have under most circumstances. i am a figure skater and there is a huge lack of figure skating books, so i was excited to read this one and……… yikes.

the dialogue is tremendously bad. all quips and no substance. every other sentence is a witty quip that makes no sense in context and makes me feel nothing. and that’s the problem!!! nothing makes sense in the context!!!! each character is monologuing at one another. no human person on planet earth talks like anyone in this book. genuinely reads like an alien who learned about earth culture through 1D imagines on tumblr dot com. i am begging authors to read their work out loud to see if it makes sense. just really poorly written dialogue all around. and when you are writing a romance novel, the characters and the dialogue are paramount. you cannot have a compelling story if the characters are this disconnected from their circumstances and cannot communicate in a compelling way.

many of my complaints with this book relate to my opinion that the author had specific scenes or lines in mind and worked backwards to fit them into the story. everything is jumbled. certain scenes seem to have more detail and intention, but the legwork to get there is tenuous at best. i understanding STARTING a book this way- creating an outline around big ideas or specific scenes and then fleshing is out- but your book should not read like a series of specific ideas tied together with dental floss. i would say most scenes feel rushed and make no sense because there was no effort put in to making it a finished and connected story. characters develop feelings at odd paces. there is a moment at the beginning of the book where the fmc says something along the lines of “ugh that’s something dylan always does. that’s sooooo dylan. he always makes me feel xyz” which makes no sense bc she just met him and the reader (and therefore the fmc) hasn’t seen dylan do anything of the sort. i would look up more specific examples, but honestly, it’s almost the entire book. just really bad quality writing.

and the writing wasn’t even my biggest gripe!!!!! it’s was the misogyny!!!!!!! (and the figure skating misinformation that was built on a foundation of misogyny) sierra is a professional figure skater. she went to the olympics. very few figure skaters make it to the olympic stage— you have to be the best in your country to be chosen/to qualify for the team after competing in international qualifying competitions. to put it into perspective, a figure skater’s career does not begin and end with the olympics every four years. many senior skaters (level of the pros) skate collegiately or in non-qualifying competitions and never make it to the national or international circuit. if you can make it nationally, you face off against all of the senior skaters in your country, and in order to make it to the international competitions, your skating federation has to believe in your ability to win comps for your country. sierra (and her partner) were chosen by their country’s skating federation because they were the best in said country. there are a lot of figure skaters in seniors (pro level) and very few compete internationally, and even less are chosen to represent their country at the olympics every four years. all that to say SHE IS A PROFESSIONAL. SHE IS A PRO!!! she is a part of an elite class of figure skaters. there is no reason why a man skating with his sister in his childhood would equate to a skill level comparable to sierra’s. so tell me WHY ON EARTH dylan is spoken about like he is more competent and better at figure skating than sierra. WHYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!! there are many scenes where we see sierra thinking about how he is soooo much better at skating than she is. ya know. the fucking PROFESSIONAL FIGURE SKATER????? her internal monologue will literally say “oh my god he’s better than me.”

and, perhaps, one could argue that these are her insecurities after taking a huge fall in competition (THE FUCKING OLYMPICS, BTW) and stepping back for a year. but then why don’t we see the contrary? if this is because of her insecurity, this would mean it is not true and, in fact, a lie told to her by her self doubt or anxiety or whatever. but no no no! it is true! because dylan, the HOCKEY PLAYER, who is so good at hockey, by the way, that he was scouted by a fucking NHL team, can do a quad lutz. A FUCKING QUADDDD LUTZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!! and let me tell you, as a figure skater, this is fucking insane. real life professional figure skaters will lose their quads and their triples, and probably their doubles, if they do not practice at an elite level and work out consistently and train with jump coaches. this is not riding a bike, it’s an incredibly hard skill to master, and just because he skated for a few years with his sister does not mean he could pull out a triple lutz during his first practice with sierra.

because quads are so flashy and highly discussed on an international and general population/casual figure skating level, it appears that they are easier or more achievable than they really are. many professional men who compete in seniors have no quads at all. one of my favorite male figure skaters, jason brown, has NO quads. it is not simple, it is not easy. and the insinuation that fucking hockey player dylan can pull a triple out of his ass that is better than sierra’s or a quad, period, is mind bogglingly misogynistic. like… he is more capable of doing this thing she does professionally by virtue of his masculinity and manly ability to be better than women at everything. it is just supremely misogynistic and it makes me genuinely ill.

sierra is a professional figure skater. she trained her entire life to achieve this one goal, yet a man, who hasn’t participated in a figure skating competition in years and has exclusively worn hockey skates for the last 5-10 years, who is so good at hockey that he is going to the NHL, is somehow not only able to do what she does, but do it better. and this is supposed to be the fantasy. men are bigger and better and more capable and women are weak and incapable and meek and small and stupid. it is so deeply frustrating. this is not a romance novel, it is a horror story.

there are more figure skating bits and bobs that are incorrect that i don’t feel like going in on (there is not figure skating parent on planet earth that would make their child wear a helmet lol) but this wasn’t even a good romance novel if you ignore the misogyny, poor writing, bad dialogue, and misinformation. dylan is jealous and that’s cringe. dylan is paternalistic and that’s cringe. sierra is a nothing burger and her feelings for dylan make no sense which is, you guessed it, cringe. the author makes jokes about stalking and the consent in some scenarios feels dubious, which is just irresponsible and disgusting. just really bad in almost every sense of the word!!!!!!! and every possible way!!!!

idk man this took ten years off my life. read this book if you hate figure skating, hate good dialogue, and hate women!!! GOOD NIGHT