Tough guy

“I hope you don’t think you’re getting the better end of this deal, Ryan, because I have never been with anyone who makes me as happy as you do.”

I honestly don’t know how to write this review, but here we go 😑😑 The third book in the Game Changers Series follows Ryan Price, the defenseman we first met in Ilya and Shane’s story. Ryan is incredibly sweet, painfully shy, and struggles with severe anxiety. After being traded from team to team almost every season, he ends up in Toronto—where he unexpectedly runs into his old high school crush, Fabian Salah, thirteen years later. From there (to put it simply), Ryan and Fabian start dating and eventually fall in love.

Ryan and Fabian were… fine. I didn’t dislike them, but I wasn’t invested either. I doubt I’ll remember much about them a few months from now 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ They’re framed as polar opposites: Ryan is large and physically imposing, while Fabian is small and delicate. Ryan’s job revolves around violence; Fabian is a soft-spoken, pretty singer. Ryan is a hockey player; Fabian can’t stand hockey. The list goes on.

I apologize to readers who enjoyed this book, but I was bored out of my mind 🥱🥱 I just can’t care about characters who keeps their relationship on a mostly superficial level. Almost all the meaningful conversations and important decisions happen in the last hour of the book. Why wait that long? For nearly eighty percent of the story, they do nothing but flirt and sleep together 🤦🤦

This is a me problem, but I am so tired of books with endless sex scenes and very little emotional groundwork. I want connection. I want yearning. I want characters to actually get to know one another before jumping into bed 😢😢 Maybe this is the side effect of having read too much books over the years (because I swear the me from two years ago wouldn’t complain about this). And yes—this was also my main issue with Kip and Scott’s book.

“Wished he could just wear a sign that said: I’m sorry. I am terrible at socializing. Please don’t take it personally.”

That said, there was one aspect of this book I genuinely appreciated: the way it portrayed both Ryan’s and Fabian’s traumas and fears 💯💯 Topics like social anxiety, panic attacks, parental expectations, feelings of inadequacy, and not fitting into society’s rigid standards were handled with care. I liked how the author explored these struggles, and those moments felt authentic and relatable 😊😊

Reading is subjective. This book wasn’t for me; maybe it will be for you. If you still choose to pick it up, I hope you end up enjoying it more than I did. See you in the next review 🤗🤗