It didn’t wow me but I read it in a few days and enjoyed it enough. I liked that the hockey mc was sure about his sexuality from the beginning and that his hesitation is (publicly) pursuing the other mc was due to a past relationship (not internalized homophobia or something like that). 

I don’t think the summary of the book really aligned with the story. I expected it to be centered around Kolby tutoring Adam about improv. I didn’t find that to be a major part of the plot and not a lot of page time was dedicated to that. Adam helps Kolby learn to skate and that’s a bigger focus. The biggest focus is each of them dealing with the impact of their background on their current lives and new relationship (

Adam was accused of sexual assault by his bff/bf when they were caught kissing because the bf didn’t want people to know about this sexuality; Kolby was raised really Mormon and is estranged from his family except secretly talks to his sister, and she wants to leave the church too

),  which I actually liked better than the pitched premise. 

The relationship drama was a bit annoying. It felt like Adam was often making mountains out of molehills and reacting immaturely. He always comes to his senses but he huffs and puffs at Kolby, without listening to his explanations,  a couple of times which was kind of annoying. Like, just listen to your man!! In general Adam sometimes annoyed me; he sort of oozed privilege. 

For a hockey romance in a non hockey series, hockey was decently prevalent. There wasn’t on page sports, but the team was heavily featured and Adam lives in the hockey house. He thinks and talks about his future nhl career and that has direct implications on how he navigates being public with his sexuality. 

I didn’t love that this book (unintentionally) offers credence to the belief that sexual assault victims make up their assaults. Not believing victims isn’t the message the author was trying to send, but the fact that the central drama is based on an mc dealing with the repercussions of being accused of sexual assault (which he didn’t commit) might inadvertently bolster the narrative that people who make sa allegations are making it up. It’s handled well by the team and previous school where the event happened, including an investigation that found the mc innocent, but this might be triggering to anyone who has experienced sa and not had it taken seriously and/or an abuser wasn’t charged. 

Minor, but I think this book needed an epilogue, a few years later when Kolby is acting in New York and Adam is playing for the Brooklyn team, especially since the third act breakup was resolved so late in the book.