Off the Ice by Julie Cross Genre: YA Contemporary Romance Publication Date: February 28, 2017 Format: I received an advanced copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for a honest review as part of the release promo. You can purchase a copy of the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Off-Juniper-Falls-Julie-Cross-ebook/dp/B01HW6Z1I0/ Summary: All is fair in love and hockey… Claire O’Connor is back in Juniper Falls, but that doesn’t mean she wants to be. One semester off, that’s what she promised herself. Just long enough to take care of her father and keep the family business—a hockey bar beside the ice rink—afloat. After that, she’s getting the hell out. Again. Enter Tate Tanley. What happened between them the night before she left town resurfaces the second they lay eyes on each other. But the guy she remembers has been replaced by a total hottie. When Tate is unexpectedly called in to take over for the hockey team’s star goalie, suddenly he’s in the spotlight and on his way to becoming just another egotistical varsity hockey player. And Claire’s sworn off Juniper Falls hockey players for good. It’s the absolute worst time to fall in love. For Tate and Claire, hockey isn’t just a game. And they both might not survive a body check to the heart. My thoughts: Honestly, this book disappointed me quite a lot. The writing itself as good but the plot went all over the place that it was hard to follow and not much was fully developed. In the end, it was a good read and I don’t regret spending the extra time reading it. With that said, this is a longer book, and took me the course of 2 days to finish, (most books only take me a day, I read during my lunch and before/after school and on the bus). It’s not one of those books that you can put down and the go do something else and then come back and easily pick it back up. I spent a lot of time going back to figure out where the book left off and where the next part fits. Maybe it’s just because of my horrible memory as it is the end of the grading term and my brain is kinda everywhere but I know a lot of people like me who would have the same problems. As I always, say, if you’ve been around this blog long enough, or at least for a while, you can find a pretty consistent pattern to the books I read, and one type that I always come back to is about figure skating and hockey (or any Olympic sport for that matter). So when I saw that Entangled had yet another book about hockey players and a small town romance, I had to read it. Unfortunately, this book really disappointed me in terms of plot and character development. The characters were really 2 dimensional, just flat characters. You want to connect with the characters, feel what they are feeling, emotionally but there really was none of that here. Like we see all the familial problems that they two main characters are having, but they are never explained, so we don’t ever find out what’s going on with them, and how this is impacting their life. The idea of the book I liked a lot however. The classic girl coming back to her hometown to find the one guy that she’s always seen as a little brother as...something else. And of course, this guy just turned out to be the start hockey goalie of their little town. Oh! Something I’ve noticed, and maybe it’s because I live in Texas, hockey is a huge deal in some of the small cities up north-or anywhere that’s not Texas. In fact, I’ve never even see a hockey game. Also I have just got to say, the boy on the cover is hooootttt. Like seriously though, take a second and scroll back up to the cover and just stare at him for a couple seconds (I’ll admit it, I may have stared at it a little too long but no shame, no shame haha). And just imagine, he’s a hockey player and athletic so...I’ll leave it there to keep this post still somewhat PG ;) But the cover is something that I really love about the book. The few colors make just the right things pop, and I especially like the contrast between the red of their clothes and the blue/gray of the rest of the background. The only thing I don’t like is the glare effect that’s done onto the words, like a ray of sunlight hitting it, mainly because it just doesn’t feel like it fits, and hurts a little when looking at it. JUST BTW, my rating is only based off the content, the plot and the writing of the book, and additional comments I make, such as about the cover is purely extra, and because I really like graphic designing, it’s just something that I notice and want to share. The rating of a book is not going to be reflected on how much I like/dislike the cover. Of course, a lot of work is put into creating the cover just as the rest of the book, so please don’t come bashing me later for saying that I didn’t like something of the cover. Overall, I give the book a 6/10 (3/5 stars). The book wasn’t all that bad, and if you can stand the little things that stand out or the lack of development in both the plot and characters, then definitely give this book a try. If you enjoyed the Corrigan Falls series by Cate Cameron, pick this book up. I can’t promise that you’ll love it as much but it’s definitely up there. So...what did you think about the review? Comment down below or find me on social media @BrookeEvans2001 on Twitter and @thecozylittlebooknook on Instagram. ALSO!! If you didn’t already know, I have another instagram account that I’m currently using @OfficialBrookeEvans to post pics of what I’m doing with lifestyle and more photography side of me, etc...Let me know what else you want to see and what books I should read next?? ~Brooke
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About me!Brooke's a high schooler who loves to read all sorts of books. She's happy to be able to share all the books she's reading with all of y'all. Archives
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