Off the Ice

I thought I would love this book. Mostly because sports jock M/M romance is my favourite trope. It had all the makings of a good novel. Teacher lusting after a student, student lusting after a teacher. Tension and angst. Basically all the components of the formula for this type of novel. Yet it didn't jump of the page for me.

Warning this contains one plot point that happens early in the story..

I pretty much skimmed through the first parts. I didn't really get into it. Once I did start paying attention there were too many things that didn't make sense. For instance, when Sebastian assumed the non-jock looking kid would be the one to write a paper about, well, hockey. With such effortless detail thus going against type but then on the flip side assume the jock, Tristan, was the one who stole ta later paper thus going with type. It didn't fit his character on so many levels to choose the exact road of the type of thing he was trying to teach his students not to do.

It was too obvious it was designed to get Tristan and him together. Also, teachers always ask for evidence. I couldn't believe for a second that Sebastian would not have asked them both to supply evidence that the paper belonged to them. Why chance having a student report you if you're trying to move forward in your career?

Along the same plotline, I find it hard to believe a closeted gay sports jock would write a paper on said topic to his gay lecturer unless he was fully intending on outing himself at some point. Which, as the plot goes on, he wasn't. All of this happened right around the time I started paying attention. And when a student asked to see Tristan's paper to help him with his own, you could see where this was going a mile away and Tristain didn't seem dumb enough to not know where this was going. But, plot, so he had to supply it. 

I also got lost sometimes. The timeline wasn't obvious so I had to re-read bits to figure out how much time had passed occasionally. It could be because I'm just slow but it happened enough times for me to remember. I didn't feel the weight of Tristan being afraid to come out. Or Sebastian's confliction with dating someone not out. There were so many opportunities to dig into this that were glossed over. Touch on in casual conversation but never really dug into. This made the story felt like it just moved from one scene to the next as I kept reading. The final conflict seemed a bit... odd. I dunno but I couldn't really get into the fight. I guess that was because it was the only time the topic was faced and it was at the end so I knew it would blow over as it was too close to the final page. There wasn't enough time to dwell on it.

Lastly I, unfortunately, half-read a good bit of the erotic scenes. With the whole, I want to be dominated angle I expected, well, more. They just didn't do it for me.  

I did finish this book. Fast. I enjoyed it just enough to keep reading. It was edited well, the scenes moved okay, but nothing stuck. Honestly only the things that bugged me stood out and the rest kinda filtered away. Not bad enough to ruin it but not good enough to be memorable either. This story read like an afterschool special with the perfect dose of total gay acceptance and a dash of sex so that it could pretend it wanted to be more than safe but it never got deep enough, or steamy enough to kill the safe vibe. It gave me all the promise of a nice gritty, hilarious and steamy romance. hit all the points, stopped, and didn't dive into the characters enough to make me suspend the reality needed to join this journey.

I'm all here for suspension of reality as this is fantasy. But there's only so far you can go especially when the point where the story takes off is based on something I can't ever see the main character doing. Not with the job they have. It was too contrived for me to go along with and it didn't lift much more from there.

It gets two stars because I did laugh a bit. It was a fun read at some points but not spectacular on a whole. If light, safeish, hockey romance is your thing then this is for you. If you're wanting a bit more than that this story might not deliver.