Goals
Kelly Farmer tells a sweet story with amazing chemistry, I enjoyed this series so far and look forward to the next book, “They were loving each other physically, mentally, emotionally, everythingally, This was what love felt like, Foreign and yet familiar and wonderful, ”
This is a sweet, sapphic, enemies to lovers, hockey romance, Each of our lead heroines went on their own journeys of self discovery in order to ultimately come together and I enjoyed being on that journey with them,
This book is filled with many different relationships, relationships between friends, teammates, families, the media and fans, The juggling of these never feels convoluted or inauthentic, It feels like a fully realized world,
My biggest complaint is the dual point of views are confusing, At times I didnt know which characters perspective I was reading, Even to the point where sometimes I was like, wait, whose dialogue is this Id have much preferred if each chapter focused on the perspective of one character instead of vacillating back and forth throughout.
Apparently I made a boo boo and read the second book of this series first but it didnt feel like I was missing anything, Im not sure I enjoyed this book enough to go back and read the first one, As a lesbian who used to play ice hockey, I was super keen on this book, and Kelly Farmer did not disappoint, I went into Unexpected Goals thinking it was going to be a chill and cute enemiestolovers romance and it was! but it was also a beautiful story about exploring and understanding one's own identity and coming to terms with the fact that what you thought your life was going to be might not actually be what it becomes.
A lot of Maisy's story echoed my own, and I thought the author did a wonderful job of expressing the journey some folks go through when they start to realise they're not as straight as they once believed.
The romance between the two main characters was welldeveloped and believable, and while I was a little taken aback by the introduction of so many side characters at the beginning of the book, Farmer was able to create individual characters out of each of them, which really added to the richness of the story.
Also, as a warning/aside: Farmer doesn't waste time explaining the ins and outs of ice hockey to readers, which is great for those familiar with the sport, but if you're going in blind, you may feel a little lost.
Stick with it the romance and the relationship is worth it!
I will be keeping an eye out for Kelly Farmer's name in the future, I loved the way this book was written, and am so keen to read more of her work especially if it involves more sports gays! This was a sweet enemies to lovers sapphic ice hockey romance.
Maisy and Jen have had a heated rivalry since an altercation during a US/Canada game during the Olympics, Now that theyre both playing for the Boston Ice theyre going to have to work past their previous issues and learn to be teammates, As they start to get to know one another sparks begin to fly between them,
I dont normally think of enemies to lovers stories as being low angst, but this one definitely was, Most of the conflicts that come up are understandable and dont feel like they appeared out of nowhere, Previously Maisy had assumed she was straight and is having to figure out her sexuality and how to tell people about her new relationship, Jen also has some trepidation about wanting to make sure this isnt like previous times where a woman
has used her only to experiment,
The book is written inrd person switching between both Maisy and Jens POV, At times it got super confusing because their voices were so similar, When they were both in a scene together sometimes I really struggled to tell whose POV the story was being told from in that moment, The sex scenes in this book happen off page, which can be fine, But I think the kissing scenes didnt do enough to establish their physical connection, they just felt a bit lackluster, Also, while I did find the conflicts to be believable, I do think they got extremely repetitive, It was just the same conversations being had over and over again,
I enjoyed reading this even though it wasnt the perfect book for me, Sapphic sports romances are becoming a new favorite category for me,
Thank you to the publisher for providing an advance copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, For any sports romance lovers out there this is a nice and quick read abouthockey players who go from rivals to lovers, Maisy and Jen are well written characters who quite literally are opposite with Jen being a forward and Maisy being a goalie, And there is the base for the enemies part: after a collision earlier in their career there was definitely no love lost between them,
Kelly Farmer managed to put in a lot of serious topics in this book without it becoming overly heavy in the angst department which is rather well done.
Yet it was not an extremely memorable book, more like a nice romantic interlude without needing to think too much, As I am writing this review I feel like most of the plot has already faded so it was enjoyable but not great, Still for those of you who like a bit of sports in their romance, this was one of the books I enjoyed most in that category,
Thank you Netgalley for supplying an ARC so I could review this book,.Stars! This was a cute, enemiestolovers, sapphic sports romance, Im happy to say that I enjoyed this more than I expected and that it was a definite improvement over Farmers sapphic debut, After reading some of the earlier reviews I had lowered my expectations some, I dont know if that actually helped in the end or what but this was quite an enjoyable read for me.
It did have some issues I will go into them more later which was a shame since had a few things been different I might have even loved this book.
But overall it was a good romantic read that I enjoyed,
While I am calling this a sportsromance it is much heavier on the romance than the sports, One of my issues with the first book was that there was not enough hockey and too many possible exciting sports scenes where skipped over instead, As a big sports fan, there still was not enough hockey for me personally, but there was an absolute improvement over the last book, The hockey parts that are there were cute, exciting, or actually helped to push the connection between the mains forward, I think Farmer was able to make sports fans a little happier, yet she still kept the book very romance focused,
This is the second book in the Out on the Ice series, You do spend some time with the couple from the previous book, but this book is about two other characters so while I always recommend reading books in order, I dont think you have to here.
Unlike in the first book, where it took me a while to warm to one of the mains, I liked both main characters in this book almost right away.
Im a big fan of enemiestolovers and it was a lot of fun watching these women with their rival chemistry, and seeing it turn into sexual chemistry, They really formed a connection and I believed in them as a possible couple, The intimate scenes were well done, and there were lots of sweet moments, but this does lead me to one of my two main issues: There were no actual sex scenes in this book.
Normally, I dont mind fade to black, but I really felt the absence of sex in this book, This happened in the first book of the series too, Farmer, is good at lighting up the pages with lots of sparks, but then it feels like a letdown that the book never goes there, I dont often say this but this series really needs sex scenes and it feels weird that there are none, I could see potential for a book, staring an ace/aro character so if that happens my statement is just meant for the first two series books obviously,
My other big issue ended up being a pacing issue, I really enjoyed the beginning and end of the book, but the middle slowed down too much, I liked what was happening in the middle, but Farmer got caught in this circle and could not seem to step out of it, The same feelings, the same inner and outer dialogue, everything kept repeating over and over but werent going anywhere, I kept yelling at the book that “I got it!” I understand whats going on so you dont have to explain it more anymore, Lets move on! Farmer has to trust her readers a bit more and not beat them over the head with the same thing, I think one, but probably two, chapters could have easily been cut out and it would have made the flow of the story so much better, The pace would have been much more consistent, the whole book, without getting stuck in the mud of the middle,
TLDR: An enjoyable enemiestolovers, sportsromance, This was an improvement on Farmers sapphic debut and a solid second book in this series, The characters are easy to like, are super cute together, and they actually try to communicate, The book had some nice sparks going but I did think it took a hit by not having any sex scenes, The beginning and the end are really good, but Farmer should have tightened up the middle because it became repetitive and dragged a bit, In the end, I still enjoyed this more than I expected and I would absolutely read a book,
A copy was given to me for a review, .