Loving Literatures

I want to give this one a 4.5 and Goodreads doesn’t do half-stars yet, but I can here!

Offside, a college hockey romance, follows the relationship between Bailey James, journalism major and avid hockey fan, and Chase Carter, troublemaker, and stubborn rival to her brother’s hockey team. A forbidden romance, ha!

After being broken up with on her birthday (totally felt like the beginning of Legally Blonde!), Bailey decides to give Chase a shot, when they meet at a nightclub, knowing their relationship would be a total scandal with the hockey rivalry.

A lot of people didn’t like this book, per Goodreads, but I liked how long it was. Some may say it was bland at times, but I found comfort in the normal/boring relationship aspects of this book. It really represented real relationships; I get it, relationships are fun, but realistically, there are quiet times! I understand a lot of romances need to have drama, and there was certainly drama, but I really appreciated the slow parts.

I will say, the reason I did not give this book 5 stars was because of the drama shift. Everything was going well in Bailey and Chase’s relationship for so long, I felt at peace reading about how happy they were but was also anxious that things were going so well and we still had 100+ pages left of the book. Then there was a scandal, immediate drama, *jump scare!* It didn’t give much breathing room for the characters nor the readers. It felt a bit out of Chase’s character to not tell Bailey his secret, despite heavily emphasizing the importance of telling the truth (regardless of how much it hurt) from the very beginning of their relationship. To me, it seemed like Keelan rushed to put something dramatic in the book to keep her readers, but I felt disoriented for a while. Everything did kind of blow up in the characters’ faces, but it just felt so sudden, not a whole lot of development of the mess.

And after the matters were resolved, and the couple went to a cabin for a weekend getaway, the book immediately ended. I am thankful for the bonus chapters, as that provides comfortable closure, but the ending (without the bonus chapters) was so sudden! I am sure many readers, including myself, would have been frustrated by the ending without the bonus chapters.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, I loved the meet-cute, the characters (except Luke & Kristen, of course), the chemistry, the simplicity, and the hockey!

I am so blessed to have found this book (what a great find!)