Icebreaker

I got approved for this really close to publish date so here is my lightning-fast review!

• The enemies to lovers seemed REALLY fast and also kind of tame!
• I arbitrarily wanted this book to be more like The Foxhole Court and it was not, but also that's the only other sports romance I have ever read!
• The voice in this was super strong!
  I barely have any thoughts because I read it so quickly! It comes out this Tuesday! I'll probably check this out of the library and read it again then! Four stars!

Nothing like a good enemies to lovers story, and this one goes beyond a simple read and brings with it a lot of hockey therms, love, well developed characters and a lot of the good kind of drama. I loved it

So, this is my first “real” review in months and Icebreaker is the first book I've finished in months - aside from a children's picture book or two. At the risk of overshare, albeit in a vein relevant to the book, my reading slump began as a result of mediocre books and has become exacerbated by mental health struggles. Reading doesn't bring me the joy it used to, right now. It's something I want to do, but can't. Which is why actually finishing a book means a lot to me. And why I just don't have the brain power to make a full, critical review in my usual style.

I'm exhausted, y'all. And this book was kind of helping, I think, until it all fell apart in the last quarter. It went from a book I would have given four stars to one I'm struggling to give three (rounded up from two and a half). Part of that is my intense lack of tolerance for things that annoy me right now, but also part of it is the horrible ending. Seriously, the author should have been scolded by the editor for that epilogue and made to provide an actual ending which tied up loose ends of the main plots.

I'm serious. The three main plots are Mickey's struggle with depression, whether his rival-romance with Cauler will be sustainable, and which of them will get the top NHL draft pick. The epilogue flashes forward several months after Mickey and Cauler have just decided to try a relationship. They're still together, but also still closeted, and there's no real sense of hope to their situation. We're about to find out their draft order, and... No, that's it. We get an ellipsis and the statement that who's picked first doesn't matter as much as the way they're looking at each other. Dead serious. Mickey's depression also feels weirdly tucked under a rug for the epilogue with forced-seeming okayness and no true build to it when he was literally battling alcohol dependency (and the interaction it had with his meds) all the way to the final chapter.

That said, instead of a proper review, I'm just going to provide the thoughts I feel are most relevant and encourage you to read others' reviews to get a better feel for the book from a proper reviewer angle. I don't have the mental energy for a coherent critical analysis and I deliberately read this book with my critical thinking turned off because I wanna just read for funsies right now. (I'm not sorry, tbh.)

* Nobody tucks their chin as often as Mickey does. Nobody. He'd have a neck injury before the book was over! I think the author is trying to aim for ducking his head or looking down, but using the absolutely wrong phrase. Chin tucking is not casual or normal. It's what people do to make silly selfies, not to show they're sad.

* It's cute, in a very shipper fanfic sort of way. The progression from enemies to lovers is more a ‘childish resentment becomes lust' situation than anything else and relies heavily on the unrealistic ‘I hate you so much I wanna shag you' trope (which causes a lot of the fanfic feeling). But I like it. Maybe that's because I didn't read with my cricital brain turned on, or maybe that's because I'm a sucker for a good ‘rivals fuck it out' fanfic. Whatever the case, I enjoyed it despite the rushed progression and tropes (a few of which I like anyway, so there's that).

* The mental illness portrayal is realistic and raw and honestly made me have to put the book down a few times because I related too much with Mickey's struggles. He suffers from depression, dissociation, and anxiety - so tread carefully if you are bothered by depictions of these things. Personally, I found the dissociation hardest to read because it hit the closest to my experience. Definitely written with either experience or a commendable amount of research.

* I kind of wish we got to see more of the teammates. Some of them - especially Dorian - were interesting enough I'd want to see an entire book following them.

* Every tangent about misogyny and/or racism felt hamfisted and preachy, especially since it felt awkward when it came from the white boy protagonist or had “very special episode on a sitcom” vibes when it came from the side characters in the middle of unrelated conversations. (Is this how teens communicate these days? Berating people they allegedly love over perceived privilege, constantly complaining about injustices even during casual conversations...? Idk, it must be tiring for them if it is.) Now, it makes perfect sense for the ladies caught up in this to opine or be activists and their brother to support them; that isn't what annoyed me. It's just not presented well and often feels like a sudden PSA in the middle of a movie instead of something organic. I just struggle to believe even half of these moments are how a real conversation would flow.

* Mickey berating himself for being “hetero-passing” while in a depressive spiral ached. Baby, no. Don't put the weight of society's heteronormative bullshit on yourself.

* I should have hated Mickey because he's an archetype I don't much care for: someone born into privilege and complaining about its burdens. But actually I quite liked him and thought his complaints were valid - like feeling abandoned by his parents when they moved away during his childhood and left him with other families, even though the reason was to keep him in the best possible hockey program. The author did an amazing job making him sound believable as a decent person instead of a trope.

* Mickey and Cauler are kind of cute, in a very... fanfic sort of way. I like it, but it also doesn't feel authentic at all times. Some elements of the rivalry and lust feel out of order or strangely incongruent with their characterizations.

* Look, I'm kind of into it because that was my scene at their ages, but the references to metal/screamo (or whatever it's called these days, but the descriptions made me think firmly of Linkin Park, Korn, etc.), tattoos, piercings, and the general aesthetic associated with said scene were... a lot to handle sometimes. I get it, the author Mickey has a type. Stop gushing about it!

* There's something oddly creepy-feeling about characters openly discussing fanfic, and I say that as a reader and occasional writer thereof - even in the name-dropped Dragon Age fandom. It's just... I guess this book itself reads so much like fanfic that the references feel like patently unclever fourth wall breaks instead of natural conversations. (Do teens these days openly discuss raunchy fanfic? Jeez. When I was their age, it was a filthy secret to take to the grave and never, ever discuss outside the internet. I still don't discuss it outside the internet, yet I'll admit to reading smutty erotic books.)

* This is totally the most chaste “fanfic” ever and it reads kind of like YA because the characters start out 17 but then it reads like NA because they're in college. The tonal dissonance is peculiar sometimes, but not overly bothersome.

* With one exception for an incredibly obnoxious and contrived dramatic family moment - one of his sisters goes behind his back and forcibly pushes him and his dad together despite the toxicity of their relationship because she's on the dad's side (as one of the children he actually bothered to raise), then belittles and treats him like shit for being upset with her, calling his trauma from negligence just him being a spoiled brat - I really enjoyed Mickey's sisters and his friend Nova.

* If the author were to either retcon or expand upon the epilogue and continue the story in another book, I'd probably read it. I wanna see more of these characters.

* The first 60% or so was enjoyable and the rest was kind of a rocky rollercoaster between things I liked and tropes I loathe with every fiber of my soul.

* Honestly sometimes the male characters don't sound like teenage boys at all. They're more like what teenage girls wish teenage boys were. Aka: “I told you it reads like a fanfic.” I don't mind too much, since they're young. It almost feels hopeful, pretending we've achieved a world where even jocks are okay with crying in front of friends and talking about mental health issues and acting in ways outside the norm of hyper-masculinity.

* Please never make me read a cringey twitter war written out in a novel via fake tweets ever again. They're pathetic enough irl. I don't need them in my fiction - especially when they come out of nowhere. Seriously. One second Mickey is all “wow I was an ass, I should apologize” and the next he's picking a tweet war with the person he should've apologized to... Why?! The conflict it causes barely even lasts one chapter, at that.

* I'm not sure I can say I had fun once the mental health issues came into play, because it was a bit difficult to read with my current struggles. But I can say that I liked most of the book. It's a quick read, even during a reading slump, and has engaging characters.

In general, I think I liked the characters and mental health rep enough to warrant giving this book three stars, but I'd more accurately say two and a half. The final quarter was a chore to get through, compared to the earlier sections which actually encouraged me to keep reading every moment my brain (and schedule) would allow. But, hey, I finished a book! And I liked the majority of it. So, make of that what you will.