"Have you ever hated someone so much you want to suffocate them with your own tongue?"
This book goes straight to the top of the list of my favorite new adult romances of all times. I didn't expect to love it as much as I did, because it's hockey-centric and when it comes to winter sports, I'm way more of a figure skating person. I've watched a bit of hockey here and there, but I don't know all the terms all the details. It's just not a thing I'm into. After reading this book, though, I find myself vaguely interested in watching a few games!
What made this such a stellar read for me, though, wasn't the hockey part. It was everything else around it. This is one of the best cases of representation of anxiety and depression I've encountered. So many experiences the MC went through were viscerally relatable. That combo of anxiety driving you to keep doing something and depression preventing you from doing anything at the same time. The spacing out. The insomnia. Those situations when, with just a bit of effort, you suddenly have a really good day, and it feels like hey, maybe you've got a grasp on this thing called life, maybe you can do it! Except you wake up the next morning, and everything is now way worse than before. Those instances of being able to recite things from memory, yet completely overlooking them when it comes to applying them in practice. The sudden bursts of anger. The initial effect of antidepressants, when you suddenly start feeling things instead of just being empty and indifferent, but at first, they're all sad, hurtful things. How genuinely, wholly difficult it is to accept help or even just validation. How you keep feeling that you're probably faking it, because you don't get to be depressed when there are so many people who have it way worse than you do. I just kept wanting to give Mickey a hug and tell him, "Yeah, this, so much this, I get it." I also dearly appreciated that the MC wasn't the only depressed character in the book, that he got to commiserate with someone on shared experiences.
The romance part was simply amazing. It hits all the beats of what I look for when I'm in the mood for rivals/enemies-to-lovers. The gradual progression from mutual loathing to uneasy understanding and passion that didn't immediately crowd out the loathing to closeness was just 10/10. I appreciated that the reasons for the initial enmity were very real and thoughtful. It wasn't just, "We want the same thing, we're fighting for this number one spot, but we would totally be friends otherwise." Jaysen's reasons for initially detesting Mickey aren't completely fair, but he can't know that—he bases his judgment on what he can see from the outside, and the issues he has with the parts of Mickey's situation that he sees are 100% valid. Mickey also isn't being completely fair to Jaysen, because he interprets a lot of things through the lens of his depression, but his depression is there and real and yes, that's exactly what it can do to relationships. These characters have amazing chemistry, and I loved watching them pile obstacles onto their own path to happiness and then work at disassembling and overcoming them.
There are also so many other great plot threads and important themes laced throughout the narrative. The sibling dynamics, the relationship with estranged parents, lots of queerness including a poly relationship in the background, the heavy load of legacy and expectations, the questions of race, class, misogyny, and homophobia in relation to sports and beyond, the weight of fame and the impact all the attention from the press, the Youtube analytics, and the fanfic writers can have on a young athlete, and so much more. Oh, and the wonderful found family dynamic on the hockey team? Chef's kiss.
Why, then, am I giving this book only 4.5 stars? Sadly, it's the epilogue, especially the very end. While the author has wrapped up Mickey's personal arc, his family arc, and the relationship arc quite nicely, that one external plot question also deserved to be answered. I get what the author was aiming at with that decision in the last lines. It didn't work for me at all.
But whatever, this is still very firmly a favorite, and I'd die for a sequel. I want to see Mickey and Jaysen's relationship develop under the new circumstances, I want to see what setbacks they encounter and how they deal with them, and I want to meet all the wonderful characters again. Oh, and the answer to that question? Naturally, I want to know it, too, and to see the impact it has on the characters.
