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Light Up the Lamp
Gil missed his first chance with Sebastian. Now, he has one shot to try again.
Gil Roussin’s goals for his hockey career don’t involve playing for the worst team in the league, so when he’s sent to the San Francisco Sea Lions, Gil will do whatever it takes to get traded.
But the Sea Lion’s coaching staff has other ideas for him, and among them is the last person Gil expected to see Sebastian Martin. Once Gil’s childhood best friend, and his first flame, it's been a decade since Sebastian drifted out of his life. Now, Gil needs to convince his ex-boyfriend and current coach to help him on—and off—the ice.
Can Gil and Sebastian work together to get Gil traded? Or will so much time together rekindle the very relationship Gil has spent years trying to forget?
Light up the Lamp is a steamy, m/m romance novel. If you like the hope of second chances and the joy returned passion, then you’ll love this exciting hockey romance as Gil and Sebastian banter, bicker, and flirt their way back to each other.
Gil Roussin’s goals for his hockey career don’t involve playing for the worst team in the league, so when he’s sent to the San Francisco Sea Lions, Gil will do whatever it takes to get traded.
But the Sea Lion’s coaching staff has other ideas for him, and among them is the last person Gil expected to see Sebastian Martin. Once Gil’s childhood best friend, and his first flame, it's been a decade since Sebastian drifted out of his life. Now, Gil needs to convince his ex-boyfriend and current coach to help him on—and off—the ice.
Can Gil and Sebastian work together to get Gil traded? Or will so much time together rekindle the very relationship Gil has spent years trying to forget?
Light up the Lamp is a steamy, m/m romance novel. If you like the hope of second chances and the joy returned passion, then you’ll love this exciting hockey romance as Gil and Sebastian banter, bicker, and flirt their way back to each other.
432 pages, Paperback
First published May 12, 2023
313 people are currently reading
1446 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 258 reviews
January 1, 2025
I'm conflicted because I hated this, but mildly enjoyed it too?!
I didn't like the writing style at all, I'm not the biggest fan of third person at all, and this felt awkward to me for some reason.
Also it's entirely from Gil's perspective while being third person, but reading this is like being trapped inside a suffocating mindset of a really unlikeable character and there's no oxygen coming anytime soon. He's hockey dumb and has no grasp on life outside of hockey, or how his actions, words and obsession hurt people, because if it isn't hockey it doesn't matter. Also no one listens to what he says for so long, ignoring him outright or just talking over him, and it gets to the point where you want to scream because it's so fucking annoying to read!! The fact he barely stands up for himself either just made the character feel even more unlikeable and it was impossible to be empathetic or sympathetic at all.
Seb is equally annoying, it's like 50% in before he finally tells Gil that he was married, is now divorced and has a kid while Gil spent ten years pining for him and not knowing why Seb stopped contacting him. Why this was treated like a national security secret is beyond me, it's basic life information! He could have easily told Gil ten years ago what the problem was, and he could have easily talked to Gil upfront when they reunited, but it was sooooo dragged out that I just didn't care about the outcome anymore.
The first half of the book has really frustrating dialogue where nothing is actually said, questions are avoided and only vague answers are provided. I don't know if this was intended to build suspense but if so it failed, because the facts being danced around were just anticlimactic. The second half of the book was marginally better but it finished with what felt like a lot of loose ends
I did like the fast pace of the relationship rekindling and I also didn't put the book down, but I'm entirely certain that was due to my stubbornness and the fact I rarely DNF, plus my kid woke up in the middle of the night and wouldn't go back to sleep so I just ploughed on through with reading 😂
So yeah, if you enjoy being frustrated by completely unlikeable and whiny characters, and you're ok reading a weird approach to third person narrative crack on, if not I'd avoid this book!
Edited to add: Sebastian is a gaslighter! This is what I couldn't put my finger on, but he basically blames Gil for the breakdown of their relationship because he went to the NHL, when he'd known him his whole life and knew this was his life goal. He also accuses Gil of being selfish and doing whatever it takes to get his own way, yet it's Sebastian that does that by refusing to talk about anything and everything and it's always him walking away from / abandoning Gil when things get hard, yet he puts all the blame for every single thing problem onto Gil and Gil is too dumb and beaten down from his Dad's treatment of him to notice that actually Seb is a total dickhead. It was also Sebastian who literally moved on from Gil not long after he went to the NHL, and proceeded to marry and divorce one of their mutual friends and have a kid with him, whereas Gil's been pining for ten years with no clue what he did, because Sebastian never once said what the problem was or what he needed - he just ghosted Gil then was still mad at him ten years later! Run Gil!!!!
I didn't like the writing style at all, I'm not the biggest fan of third person at all, and this felt awkward to me for some reason.
Also it's entirely from Gil's perspective while being third person, but reading this is like being trapped inside a suffocating mindset of a really unlikeable character and there's no oxygen coming anytime soon. He's hockey dumb and has no grasp on life outside of hockey, or how his actions, words and obsession hurt people, because if it isn't hockey it doesn't matter. Also no one listens to what he says for so long, ignoring him outright or just talking over him, and it gets to the point where you want to scream because it's so fucking annoying to read!! The fact he barely stands up for himself either just made the character feel even more unlikeable and it was impossible to be empathetic or sympathetic at all.
Seb is equally annoying, it's like 50% in before he finally tells Gil that he was married, is now divorced and has a kid while Gil spent ten years pining for him and not knowing why Seb stopped contacting him. Why this was treated like a national security secret is beyond me, it's basic life information! He could have easily told Gil ten years ago what the problem was, and he could have easily talked to Gil upfront when they reunited, but it was sooooo dragged out that I just didn't care about the outcome anymore.
The first half of the book has really frustrating dialogue where nothing is actually said, questions are avoided and only vague answers are provided. I don't know if this was intended to build suspense but if so it failed, because the facts being danced around were just anticlimactic. The second half of the book was marginally better but it finished with what felt like a lot of loose ends
I did like the fast pace of the relationship rekindling and I also didn't put the book down, but I'm entirely certain that was due to my stubbornness and the fact I rarely DNF, plus my kid woke up in the middle of the night and wouldn't go back to sleep so I just ploughed on through with reading 😂
So yeah, if you enjoy being frustrated by completely unlikeable and whiny characters, and you're ok reading a weird approach to third person narrative crack on, if not I'd avoid this book!
Edited to add: Sebastian is a gaslighter! This is what I couldn't put my finger on, but he basically blames Gil for the breakdown of their relationship because he went to the NHL, when he'd known him his whole life and knew this was his life goal. He also accuses Gil of being selfish and doing whatever it takes to get his own way, yet it's Sebastian that does that by refusing to talk about anything and everything and it's always him walking away from / abandoning Gil when things get hard, yet he puts all the blame for every single thing problem onto Gil and Gil is too dumb and beaten down from his Dad's treatment of him to notice that actually Seb is a total dickhead. It was also Sebastian who literally moved on from Gil not long after he went to the NHL, and proceeded to marry and divorce one of their mutual friends and have a kid with him, whereas Gil's been pining for ten years with no clue what he did, because Sebastian never once said what the problem was or what he needed - he just ghosted Gil then was still mad at him ten years later! Run Gil!!!!
May 17, 2023
DNF
I can’t do it. It’s so bad. Tell me you don’t know hockey without telling me you don’t know hockey.
The dialogue is boring, the camaraderie between the brothers is boring, the relationships are confusing, the writing is awkward as hell and I’m confused about what’s going on with Gil. He’s a veteran NHL player but in the first scene he’s having trouble putting a puck in the net while playing in his own driveway. So he’s maybe 20 feet away max. He’s a highly paid professional athlete. Have you seen professional hockey players practice puck handling? Playing for fun at home? They are phenomenal. I assumed he was being shown having trouble sinking a puck because he’s… what, injured? Recovering from a severe concussion? No. None of that. I guess he’s just terrible? This makes no sense.
There’s other problems as well, but it’s not worth going into. I can’t do it. I’m pulling the plug.
I can’t do it. It’s so bad. Tell me you don’t know hockey without telling me you don’t know hockey.
The dialogue is boring, the camaraderie between the brothers is boring, the relationships are confusing, the writing is awkward as hell and I’m confused about what’s going on with Gil. He’s a veteran NHL player but in the first scene he’s having trouble putting a puck in the net while playing in his own driveway. So he’s maybe 20 feet away max. He’s a highly paid professional athlete. Have you seen professional hockey players practice puck handling? Playing for fun at home? They are phenomenal. I assumed he was being shown having trouble sinking a puck because he’s… what, injured? Recovering from a severe concussion? No. None of that. I guess he’s just terrible? This makes no sense.
There’s other problems as well, but it’s not worth going into. I can’t do it. I’m pulling the plug.
August 10, 2023
I really wanted to love this book more than I actually thought I would and the more I think about it, the more I think I was being too generous rating this 3 stars. So, it’s more like 2,5 rated down because I had too many issues.
Gil was a likeable character but I never felt like I really got to know Sebastian. He truly annoyed me, he never wanted to talk things through. I don’t understand the idea of him getting married to someone else while he and Gil had such a history together. Yes, they were young, but how often are young people holding on to something that is obviously not working? There’s a whole life ahead of them, it shouldn’t be spent feeling unhappy and miserable. So why didn’t they even try the long distance? They had been best friends for years, they had a strong bond and relationship. I just don’t understand why he gave up so soon. And then he went to hide his marriage and his kid for 10 years from the man he once called his best friend. He could have waited, because there’s still life, even when one plays hockey. And there’s also still a life after hockey.
And yes, here I go again.
The dialogues…many of them stop mid-sentence or end with a ‘uhm…yeah…’ or ‘welll…’. Or ‘let’s not talk about this’, or ‘I don’t want to talk about it’. They were frustrating and cringe worthy at times and felt very unreal. Readers who read my reviews already know dialogues are a crucial part of the story to me, and if they’re not well written like people having a conversation in real life, the book loses a few stars right away. I just can’t get past dialogues that are not real or just straight annoying.
I had some issues with the overall plot, some things just seemed a little strange and not something people would act like in real life. But what do I know? Maybe some people would.
I was kindly given an advanced copy by the author and this is my honest, unbiased review
Gil was a likeable character but I never felt like I really got to know Sebastian. He truly annoyed me, he never wanted to talk things through. I don’t understand the idea of him getting married to someone else while he and Gil had such a history together. Yes, they were young, but how often are young people holding on to something that is obviously not working? There’s a whole life ahead of them, it shouldn’t be spent feeling unhappy and miserable. So why didn’t they even try the long distance? They had been best friends for years, they had a strong bond and relationship. I just don’t understand why he gave up so soon. And then he went to hide his marriage and his kid for 10 years from the man he once called his best friend. He could have waited, because there’s still life, even when one plays hockey. And there’s also still a life after hockey.
And yes, here I go again.
The dialogues…many of them stop mid-sentence or end with a ‘uhm…yeah…’ or ‘welll…’. Or ‘let’s not talk about this’, or ‘I don’t want to talk about it’. They were frustrating and cringe worthy at times and felt very unreal. Readers who read my reviews already know dialogues are a crucial part of the story to me, and if they’re not well written like people having a conversation in real life, the book loses a few stars right away. I just can’t get past dialogues that are not real or just straight annoying.
I had some issues with the overall plot, some things just seemed a little strange and not something people would act like in real life. But what do I know? Maybe some people would.
I was kindly given an advanced copy by the author and this is my honest, unbiased review
May 30, 2023
This is like reading an 80s sports movie with a supposed-to-be-serious romance tacked on, and it doesn’t work at all.
Romance is, fundamentally, a genre you have to be willing to suspend disbelief for. But there’s a limit, and this book reached it. The idea that an NHL expansion team could be playing in a run-down old warehouse with a two-person coaching staff, one-person front office, one PR person, and zero other staff members is just too ridiculous even for romance. (In what fucking universe would the rookies on an NHL team ever do the team’s laundry?) I thought we all knew that Ted Lasso isn’t reality and sports teams have more than 5 people working for them? Maybe it’s because my favorite baseball team is currently being run into the ground by an owner who’s purposefully making the team as shitty as possible to justify relocating, but what happens in this book is not what a poorly run or cheap US pro sports team looks like. It’s not even a facsimile or a facsimile of what a poorly run or cheap pro sports team would look like. You literally would not be allowed to run a pro team like this, the league would force you to sell.
If Oliver had done something interesting or funny with this truly absurd premise then maybe I would have been fine with it, but the team being this shitty serves absolutely no purpose other than constantly distracting the reader into asking “uh, what?” The only reason the team is this bad is to give Gil a reason to want to leave immediately, but the exact same thing could have been accomplished without making this the NHL version of Major League. (And at least Major League knows it’s ridiculous; it’s genuinely unclear to me if Oliver is aware of just how unrealistic this book is.) Why couldn’t the team have just been a perennial loser with a toxic locker room, something that can and does exist in real life? And my god, the amount of time this book wastes on scenes showing how shitty this team is and how no one wants to be there – it’s excruciating.
The romance portion feels like it’s out of a completely different book, but it’s also poorly executed and squanders all the potential of the player-coach pairing. The entire book takes place in one week. One week! Where is the angst and drama that comes from trying to be in a forbidden player-coach relationship if hardly any coaching or playing even happens in the book? Most of the paltry amount of time the characters spend together is just Sebastian refusing to tell Gil why they stopped talking in the first place – which was for a reason that’s incredibly, immediately obvious to the reader, making the time it takes Gil to find out feel absolutely interminable and manufactured. And because the book spends so much time on how shitty this team is, and basically zero time on Sebastian coaching Gil (or doing much of anything besides continuously refusing to talk about things), I have no clue why Gil thinks Sebastian is so amazing or why I should even want them to be together. As far as I can tell, Sebastian takes zero responsibility for his role in anything and thinks people should just read his mind. His problem with Gil boils down to, “you kept acting like the person you were literally the entire time I knew you and that I never even hinted I had any problems with, how dare you?” Either be an adult and actually talk to people or quit complaining about problems you’ve taken zero steps to solve. If you’re going to do the opposite I am not going to root for you in a romance.
And don’t even get me started on this book’s insinuation that someone whose parent has groomed them from the day they were born to believe they’re worthy of parental love and attention only if they succeed at hockey is an oblivious idiot asshole for structuring their life around hockey. Wow, you sure suck for reacting in a completely understandable way to lifelong emotional abuse! Why didn’t you just snap out of it? No sympathy for you.
After writing all this I’m tempted to reduce my rating to a 1/5, but I reserve that for the most egregious garbage so instead I’ll stick with my 2/5 and say that I don’t recommend this book at all and don’t think it has any redeeming qualities. Don’t taint your positive memories of Cattle Stop by reading this.
Romance is, fundamentally, a genre you have to be willing to suspend disbelief for. But there’s a limit, and this book reached it. The idea that an NHL expansion team could be playing in a run-down old warehouse with a two-person coaching staff, one-person front office, one PR person, and zero other staff members is just too ridiculous even for romance. (In what fucking universe would the rookies on an NHL team ever do the team’s laundry?) I thought we all knew that Ted Lasso isn’t reality and sports teams have more than 5 people working for them? Maybe it’s because my favorite baseball team is currently being run into the ground by an owner who’s purposefully making the team as shitty as possible to justify relocating, but what happens in this book is not what a poorly run or cheap US pro sports team looks like. It’s not even a facsimile or a facsimile of what a poorly run or cheap pro sports team would look like. You literally would not be allowed to run a pro team like this, the league would force you to sell.
If Oliver had done something interesting or funny with this truly absurd premise then maybe I would have been fine with it, but the team being this shitty serves absolutely no purpose other than constantly distracting the reader into asking “uh, what?” The only reason the team is this bad is to give Gil a reason to want to leave immediately, but the exact same thing could have been accomplished without making this the NHL version of Major League. (And at least Major League knows it’s ridiculous; it’s genuinely unclear to me if Oliver is aware of just how unrealistic this book is.) Why couldn’t the team have just been a perennial loser with a toxic locker room, something that can and does exist in real life? And my god, the amount of time this book wastes on scenes showing how shitty this team is and how no one wants to be there – it’s excruciating.
The romance portion feels like it’s out of a completely different book, but it’s also poorly executed and squanders all the potential of the player-coach pairing. The entire book takes place in one week. One week! Where is the angst and drama that comes from trying to be in a forbidden player-coach relationship if hardly any coaching or playing even happens in the book? Most of the paltry amount of time the characters spend together is just Sebastian refusing to tell Gil why they stopped talking in the first place – which was for a reason that’s incredibly, immediately obvious to the reader, making the time it takes Gil to find out feel absolutely interminable and manufactured. And because the book spends so much time on how shitty this team is, and basically zero time on Sebastian coaching Gil (or doing much of anything besides continuously refusing to talk about things), I have no clue why Gil thinks Sebastian is so amazing or why I should even want them to be together. As far as I can tell, Sebastian takes zero responsibility for his role in anything and thinks people should just read his mind. His problem with Gil boils down to, “you kept acting like the person you were literally the entire time I knew you and that I never even hinted I had any problems with, how dare you?” Either be an adult and actually talk to people or quit complaining about problems you’ve taken zero steps to solve. If you’re going to do the opposite I am not going to root for you in a romance.
And don’t even get me started on this book’s insinuation that someone whose parent has groomed them from the day they were born to believe they’re worthy of parental love and attention only if they succeed at hockey is an oblivious idiot asshole for structuring their life around hockey. Wow, you sure suck for reacting in a completely understandable way to lifelong emotional abuse! Why didn’t you just snap out of it? No sympathy for you.
After writing all this I’m tempted to reduce my rating to a 1/5, but I reserve that for the most egregious garbage so instead I’ll stick with my 2/5 and say that I don’t recommend this book at all and don’t think it has any redeeming qualities. Don’t taint your positive memories of Cattle Stop by reading this.
August 7, 2023
I liked it! But I also had issues! But then I read the author's blogpost where they talk through Seb's side of things! And then I thought, fair enough! Although I still think Seb has some things that boyfriend needs to work through long-term! Gil is stepping up in a big way, maybe overly so! Own your shit, Seb!!!
Also, this is to hockey what Ted Lasso is to football, but queer (oh, Tred -- "Tent is right there!" -- you will always live in my heart).
Also, this is to hockey what Ted Lasso is to football, but queer (oh, Tred -- "Tent is right there!" -- you will always live in my heart).
May 16, 2023
It's out TODAY *proceeds to re-read*
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"Light Up the Lamp" is incredible.
An unexpected, highly impressive and ridiculously gorgeous gem of a book, featuring the most heartwarming, slow-burn, second chance romance.
I really don't know where to start because I have so many thoughts.
"Light Up the Lamp" is a hockey romance, but in many ways it's much more than that: it's about life after, and around, hockey too. It's about finally learning that a sport won't love you back the same way people do, and that sometimes it's okay for your goals and ambitions to change, that success doesn't necessarily mean a successful team or winning a cup.
Gil and Sebastian meet, after ten years apart, ten years of pain, confusion and misunderstandings, but this time as a player and a coach on the same down-on-their-luck, falling-apart hockey team. Second chance romance romances are so tricky to get right, but I thought that Kit Oliver managed it beautifully: Gil and Sebastian's past, the love and pain they feel for one another, shines through every one of their interactions, as does the fact that, after ten years apart, they both have to get to know each other anew, as adults this time.
Sebastian is both familiar and unfamiliar to Gil, and his confusion and his heartbreak, the jarring, startled realization that Gil has, probably, messed up, and that Sebastian has had a life in the meantime, was so gut-wrenching to witness.
Gil and Sebastian were both two extremely lovable protagonists, and their relationship had me in a chokehold from the start. Tentative and complex, fraught with doubts and misunderstandings, but also sweet, playful, hopeful and subtly sexy. I loved them together so damn much, even when one (or both) of them were acting like idiots.
But Gil stole my heart and soul. His is the only POV we get, so of course his view of how things went down colour the readers' perception of him and Sebastian, and of every other character too, but I have to applaud Kit Oliver for how Gil's arc and growth was handled.
The reader, alongside Gil, slowly realizes that maybe Gil's view on how things went down (with Sebastian, with Gil's parents and his brothers, with everything) is probably a bit skewed and, maybe, probably, some of it was his fault too.
So yeah, I was still fiercely protective of him for the whole duration of the novel, but I also ended up recognising that he's obviously flawed too: clueless and oblivious, a bit immature, but also so very ready to change and grow as soon as he realizes it.
The writing was brilliant, absolutely masterful: poetic, vivid, touching and Kit Oliver managed to beautifully convey the whole range of Gil's feelings. I felt his hope, his anxiety, his fears and his longing like they were my own, and my heart broke and soared with his.
And his journey throughout the book was equally brilliant, and brilliantly plotted by the author.
Again, I felt like I was changing with him: my feelings on everything that was going on, from his complicated history with Sebastian to his new team and the "unusual" way the Sea Lions work, were constantly changing, growing, alongside his own feelings.
And if that isn't a sign of a great author, I don't know what is.
The main characters were wonderful, but so were all the side characters. Gil's family, his mother especially, but also Tommy and Joey, were fantastic and lovable, and their complex family dynamic was so realistically portrayed. And the Sea Lions! Steph and Frank, all the wacky players: I learnt to love and accept them as they were, just like Gil did.
I have no idea if the author has any specific plans for a possible sequel or a book about another one of these characters (*cough* Joey *cough*) (no, seriously, I'd sell my soul for his story, especially with how his character was left), but I'm already gearing up to devour the rest of Oliver's backlist. Because whew: I was taken on an emotional, moving rollercoaster ride of a book, and my mind and heart are still reeling from it.
I fear an enormous book hangover coming on, but it was so worth it.
I received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.
---------------------------------------
"Light Up the Lamp" is incredible.
An unexpected, highly impressive and ridiculously gorgeous gem of a book, featuring the most heartwarming, slow-burn, second chance romance.
I really don't know where to start because I have so many thoughts.
"Light Up the Lamp" is a hockey romance, but in many ways it's much more than that: it's about life after, and around, hockey too. It's about finally learning that a sport won't love you back the same way people do, and that sometimes it's okay for your goals and ambitions to change, that success doesn't necessarily mean a successful team or winning a cup.
Gil and Sebastian meet, after ten years apart, ten years of pain, confusion and misunderstandings, but this time as a player and a coach on the same down-on-their-luck, falling-apart hockey team. Second chance romance romances are so tricky to get right, but I thought that Kit Oliver managed it beautifully: Gil and Sebastian's past, the love and pain they feel for one another, shines through every one of their interactions, as does the fact that, after ten years apart, they both have to get to know each other anew, as adults this time.
Sebastian is both familiar and unfamiliar to Gil, and his confusion and his heartbreak, the jarring, startled realization that Gil has, probably, messed up, and that Sebastian has had a life in the meantime, was so gut-wrenching to witness.
Gil and Sebastian were both two extremely lovable protagonists, and their relationship had me in a chokehold from the start. Tentative and complex, fraught with doubts and misunderstandings, but also sweet, playful, hopeful and subtly sexy. I loved them together so damn much, even when one (or both) of them were acting like idiots.
But Gil stole my heart and soul. His is the only POV we get, so of course his view of how things went down colour the readers' perception of him and Sebastian, and of every other character too, but I have to applaud Kit Oliver for how Gil's arc and growth was handled.
The reader, alongside Gil, slowly realizes that maybe Gil's view on how things went down (with Sebastian, with Gil's parents and his brothers, with everything) is probably a bit skewed and, maybe, probably, some of it was his fault too.
So yeah, I was still fiercely protective of him for the whole duration of the novel, but I also ended up recognising that he's obviously flawed too: clueless and oblivious, a bit immature, but also so very ready to change and grow as soon as he realizes it.
The writing was brilliant, absolutely masterful: poetic, vivid, touching and Kit Oliver managed to beautifully convey the whole range of Gil's feelings. I felt his hope, his anxiety, his fears and his longing like they were my own, and my heart broke and soared with his.
And his journey throughout the book was equally brilliant, and brilliantly plotted by the author.
Again, I felt like I was changing with him: my feelings on everything that was going on, from his complicated history with Sebastian to his new team and the "unusual" way the Sea Lions work, were constantly changing, growing, alongside his own feelings.
And if that isn't a sign of a great author, I don't know what is.
The main characters were wonderful, but so were all the side characters. Gil's family, his mother especially, but also Tommy and Joey, were fantastic and lovable, and their complex family dynamic was so realistically portrayed. And the Sea Lions! Steph and Frank, all the wacky players: I learnt to love and accept them as they were, just like Gil did.
I have no idea if the author has any specific plans for a possible sequel or a book about another one of these characters (*cough* Joey *cough*) (no, seriously, I'd sell my soul for his story, especially with how his character was left), but I'm already gearing up to devour the rest of Oliver's backlist. Because whew: I was taken on an emotional, moving rollercoaster ride of a book, and my mind and heart are still reeling from it.
I fear an enormous book hangover coming on, but it was so worth it.
I received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.
March 16, 2024
It’s not perfect, but I loved this book and couldn’t put it down - loved it enough to put down 2 other books that I’m really enjoying, actually. I didn’t think it would suck me in and make my heart melt. TBH, some
Of my reaction may be because this one resonated with me on a very personal level. It’s definitely one I will reread.
3/16/24 - I’m so glad this is part of a series as I can’t wait to read more about this team of misfits!
Of my reaction may be because this one resonated with me on a very personal level. It’s definitely one I will reread.
3/16/24 - I’m so glad this is part of a series as I can’t wait to read more about this team of misfits!
May 22, 2023
I had such high hopes for this book and wow to say I am disappointed is an understatement. This was such a mess??? I truly wanted to DNF this at least six times but I forced myself to keep going. Why? I have no idea I’ll be honest.
Gil and Seb were childhood neighbors, best friends, college teammates, and boyfriends. Until Gil got called to the NHL their sophomore year of college. Gil kept in touch with Seb who slowly ended all contact with Gil and then ignored him for TEN YEARS.
Why you ask???? Because he was upset that Gil only talked to him about hockey and he felt like Gil picked hockey over him. When Gil’s goal was to be in the NHL the whole time? Right okay.
Nothing happened the first 48% of the book i swear. Gil was traded to the worst team ever that Seb happened to be an assistant coach for. They just talked in circles around each other until Seb kissed Gil at an open skate. Then proceeded to tell him he was married and now divorced with a two year old. I’m sorry????
You later found out that the said ex-husband is a mutual friend of theirs from college???? And when Gil finds out he’s confused but chill??? Seb fell for Chris because he was there when Gil wasn’t???
So after Gil finds out who the ex-husband is, he stays at Seb’s house they have sex and then the next morning Seb asks Gil to leave because he doesn’t want the kid to see him and be confused. Hahahaha okay????
I felt like it was just one dumb thing after another???? Because Gil is trying to leave this team and Seb gets mad because he wants someone to put him and his kid first and then walks away from Gil?? Again, okay what
Gil’s dad sucked so much and all the scenes that included him were brutal because he was such an ass. Like Gil my guy you’re 29 years old letting your dad run your hockey career???
I did enjoy the last 6% of this book, mainly because of the big “I love you” scene but that’s it.
Honestly there was so chemistry and I’m not really sure how they worked but whatever i guess they got their happy ending. Even though I wasted my time reading this. Good for them.
Gil and Seb were childhood neighbors, best friends, college teammates, and boyfriends. Until Gil got called to the NHL their sophomore year of college. Gil kept in touch with Seb who slowly ended all contact with Gil and then ignored him for TEN YEARS.
Why you ask???? Because he was upset that Gil only talked to him about hockey and he felt like Gil picked hockey over him. When Gil’s goal was to be in the NHL the whole time? Right okay.
Nothing happened the first 48% of the book i swear. Gil was traded to the worst team ever that Seb happened to be an assistant coach for. They just talked in circles around each other until Seb kissed Gil at an open skate. Then proceeded to tell him he was married and now divorced with a two year old. I’m sorry????
You later found out that the said ex-husband is a mutual friend of theirs from college???? And when Gil finds out he’s confused but chill??? Seb fell for Chris because he was there when Gil wasn’t???
So after Gil finds out who the ex-husband is, he stays at Seb’s house they have sex and then the next morning Seb asks Gil to leave because he doesn’t want the kid to see him and be confused. Hahahaha okay????
I felt like it was just one dumb thing after another???? Because Gil is trying to leave this team and Seb gets mad because he wants someone to put him and his kid first and then walks away from Gil?? Again, okay what
Gil’s dad sucked so much and all the scenes that included him were brutal because he was such an ass. Like Gil my guy you’re 29 years old letting your dad run your hockey career???
I did enjoy the last 6% of this book, mainly because of the big “I love you” scene but that’s it.
Honestly there was so chemistry and I’m not really sure how they worked but whatever i guess they got their happy ending. Even though I wasted my time reading this. Good for them.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 17, 2023
Kit Oliver is the writer for The Place In Between and he will have my love and respect just for that.
But since that book I haven't had luck with this author and this is no exception.
The beginning was full of innecesary mystery, where we weren't told what the hell was the problem between the main characters.
Ah! But they both agreed to be together in the same room, despite all of it, makes sense? Not much, yeah I know there were economic reasons, but still... Didn't make sense.
Every time one of them wanted to talk about the past, the other one avoided it as their life depended on it (don't remember their names, but the one that was a coach). Are you seriously adults? What is this nonsense?
And then, we get told what is the big secret and what a way to ruin it, that was it? THAT WAS IT? 🫠🫠 That was what he couldn't talk about? (The coach) And then, the coach keeps telling that he is not ashamed, that he loves his ex, that blabla bla
THEN WHY HIDE IT???? WHY????
And don't get me started on the abusive other main character. I DIDN'T LIKE HIM! How can you be so blind and mean? No Jesus!
Nope! I enjoyed some parts and some interactions, and if this book wasn't written by Kit, I would have been better prepared, I think, but I have expectations, can't help it.
That's why, 3 stars. 😪
But since that book I haven't had luck with this author and this is no exception.
The beginning was full of innecesary mystery, where we weren't told what the hell was the problem between the main characters.
Ah! But they both agreed to be together in the same room, despite all of it, makes sense? Not much, yeah I know there were economic reasons, but still... Didn't make sense.
Every time one of them wanted to talk about the past, the other one avoided it as their life depended on it (don't remember their names, but the one that was a coach). Are you seriously adults? What is this nonsense?
And then, we get told what is the big secret and what a way to ruin it, that was it? THAT WAS IT? 🫠🫠 That was what he couldn't talk about? (The coach) And then, the coach keeps telling that he is not ashamed, that he loves his ex, that blabla bla
THEN WHY HIDE IT???? WHY????
And don't get me started on the abusive other main character. I DIDN'T LIKE HIM! How can you be so blind and mean? No Jesus!
Nope! I enjoyed some parts and some interactions, and if this book wasn't written by Kit, I would have been better prepared, I think, but I have expectations, can't help it.
That's why, 3 stars. 😪
June 10, 2023
Ignore bad hockey.
Swoon with stunted, stubborn men
pining for first love.
3.75 rounded up, because though the hockey was hilariously inauthentic (srsly, it's like Oliver heard that hockey was a popular MM genre and just ... went with it, without doing any research or even reading a single other freaking MM hockey book), Gil and Seb were authentically emotionally stunted because of their daddy issues and made terrible, terrible mistakes because they had zero self-awareness. Also there were lots of run-on sentences.
Swoon with stunted, stubborn men
pining for first love.
3.75 rounded up, because though the hockey was hilariously inauthentic (srsly, it's like Oliver heard that hockey was a popular MM genre and just ... went with it, without doing any research or even reading a single other freaking MM hockey book), Gil and Seb were authentically emotionally stunted because of their daddy issues and made terrible, terrible mistakes because they had zero self-awareness. Also there were lots of run-on sentences.
June 21, 2023
2.5 ⭐️
i literally hate giving this hockey book -a book i was so excited for- 2.5 stars but yk i’ll tell you why i literally forced myself to finish it… bc i wanted to know the ending. that’s it. everything was getting on my nerves about this book.
why? oh i’ll tell you
the way the story is written made it hard to keep up, i feel like everything was on fucking crack, just bouncing around and not finishing a thought. the hockey sucked. sorry not sorry, i love my hockey romances and this? subpar hockey.
i hated the tropes in this: second chance, miscommunication like PLEASE the way the other characters talked around gil made me want to throw the book multiple times! like just say what you’re going to say??? ITS NOT THAT HARD. (as you can see i’m still in my feelings about this).
another part of this book i disliked, was that everyone, except for his dad, kept telling him ‘it’s just hockey’ blah blah ‘it’s just a game’. like? hellooooo this is his career?? tf are you on about?? it’s not like he was on year 2 and got traded to the shitty team HES A TEN YEAR VETERAN it’s a little late to be telling him “hockey isn’t what matters” yeah maybe to you, sebastian but to our gil hockey is what he loves. idk that just got on my nerves.
also his dad?? a grade A asshole and there really should’ve been content warning about a narcissistic asshole who literally manipulated his own son. gil finally gets his head out of his ass and learns how shitty his dad is; and that he would choose sebastian over hockey, a life lesson all around if you asked me.
▪️spoilers ▪️
his dad told him “we’ll get you traded” the entire book and when there was a chance to do that he quite literally gave “his spot” aka the spot on dear ole dads team to someone else. a bullshit move if you ask me. and the way gil defends him?? god… js a CONTENT WARNING would’ve been nice.
ALSO,
oh you thought i was done? no.
the fact that gil never spoke to sebastian ever in a span of 10 years after being childhood bffs is wild to me. like yeah a couple of years is alright but as someone who needs closure, (i would be stalking them just to see how life is treating them) there’s a thing called instagram, facebook, and oh wait YOUR DAD IS NEIGHBORS WITH HIS MOM!! someone in gil’s family would’ve known sebastian had a kid. it’s so unrealistic that gil never found out through his brothers or literally anyone from home. the way gil never took responsibility about their break up??? 60% of the book has you thinking sebastian did something that caused the break up. like cheated or did something (if you didn’t think that then wtf were you thinking). but that shows to tell you how every side of the story is different.
which leads me BACK TO miscommunication trope. JUST TALK AND EXPLAIN!!!! ugh! all of the shot that happened could’ve been avoided if these characters knew how to LISTEN and SPEAK their minds.
another aspect of this story is that sebastian was all “no we can’t, we keep it professional” then he just switched it?? like there was nothing that significantly happened to even make him flip that switch.. it was very confusing that he now wanted gil after telling him they couldn’t.
anyways,
thank you for coming to my review, i’m sorry if you enjoyed this book, i didn’t and that’s okay.
i literally hate giving this hockey book -a book i was so excited for- 2.5 stars but yk i’ll tell you why i literally forced myself to finish it… bc i wanted to know the ending. that’s it. everything was getting on my nerves about this book.
why? oh i’ll tell you
the way the story is written made it hard to keep up, i feel like everything was on fucking crack, just bouncing around and not finishing a thought. the hockey sucked. sorry not sorry, i love my hockey romances and this? subpar hockey.
i hated the tropes in this: second chance, miscommunication like PLEASE the way the other characters talked around gil made me want to throw the book multiple times! like just say what you’re going to say??? ITS NOT THAT HARD. (as you can see i’m still in my feelings about this).
another part of this book i disliked, was that everyone, except for his dad, kept telling him ‘it’s just hockey’ blah blah ‘it’s just a game’. like? hellooooo this is his career?? tf are you on about?? it’s not like he was on year 2 and got traded to the shitty team HES A TEN YEAR VETERAN it’s a little late to be telling him “hockey isn’t what matters” yeah maybe to you, sebastian but to our gil hockey is what he loves. idk that just got on my nerves.
also his dad?? a grade A asshole and there really should’ve been content warning about a narcissistic asshole who literally manipulated his own son. gil finally gets his head out of his ass and learns how shitty his dad is; and that he would choose sebastian over hockey, a life lesson all around if you asked me.
▪️spoilers ▪️
his dad told him “we’ll get you traded” the entire book and when there was a chance to do that he quite literally gave “his spot” aka the spot on dear ole dads team to someone else. a bullshit move if you ask me. and the way gil defends him?? god… js a CONTENT WARNING would’ve been nice.
ALSO,
oh you thought i was done? no.
the fact that gil never spoke to sebastian ever in a span of 10 years after being childhood bffs is wild to me. like yeah a couple of years is alright but as someone who needs closure, (i would be stalking them just to see how life is treating them) there’s a thing called instagram, facebook, and oh wait YOUR DAD IS NEIGHBORS WITH HIS MOM!! someone in gil’s family would’ve known sebastian had a kid. it’s so unrealistic that gil never found out through his brothers or literally anyone from home. the way gil never took responsibility about their break up??? 60% of the book has you thinking sebastian did something that caused the break up. like cheated or did something (if you didn’t think that then wtf were you thinking). but that shows to tell you how every side of the story is different.
which leads me BACK TO miscommunication trope. JUST TALK AND EXPLAIN!!!! ugh! all of the shot that happened could’ve been avoided if these characters knew how to LISTEN and SPEAK their minds.
another aspect of this story is that sebastian was all “no we can’t, we keep it professional” then he just switched it?? like there was nothing that significantly happened to even make him flip that switch.. it was very confusing that he now wanted gil after telling him they couldn’t.
anyways,
thank you for coming to my review, i’m sorry if you enjoyed this book, i didn’t and that’s okay.
June 15, 2023
3 stars
Perhaps my expectations were way too high but this book did not live up to them. Let's set aside the absurd shithole-level arena and facilities for an NHL team that would never be allowed and the training camp with roughly 6 people in attendance and focus on the non-hockey parts.
First of all, the miscommunication in here was off the charts. Poor Gil tries so hard but he only knows how to speak in hockey and no one helps him out at any point they only ever say "Oh, Gil" to him. Someone please help my buddy out and clearly explain the problems!!! How is he supposed to know anything at all he has one brain cell and it's dedicated to hockey and thinking "Sebastian" 500 times a second but he's so willing to try if only someone would guide him :(
This made the entire book frustrating to read because the 80% breakup is Gil speaking in his single-minded hockey way and Sebastian hating it but not actually telling Gil why. Both of them need to read Crucial Conversations or idk at least use their words out loud to each other. Being inside Gil's head with his circular thoughts and the dense writing style was almost too much to handle.
There are some very sweet moments, though. And thankfully none of the Hockey Problems are solved by them winning the cup or some bullcrap because it's still the pre-season when the book ends.
So, not the best Kit Oliver book (that would be Cow Book obviously) but as far as hockey romance goes it's decent enough.
I received an ARC copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
Perhaps my expectations were way too high but this book did not live up to them. Let's set aside the absurd shithole-level arena and facilities for an NHL team that would never be allowed and the training camp with roughly 6 people in attendance and focus on the non-hockey parts.
First of all, the miscommunication in here was off the charts. Poor Gil tries so hard but he only knows how to speak in hockey and no one helps him out at any point they only ever say "Oh, Gil" to him. Someone please help my buddy out and clearly explain the problems!!! How is he supposed to know anything at all he has one brain cell and it's dedicated to hockey and thinking "Sebastian" 500 times a second but he's so willing to try if only someone would guide him :(
This made the entire book frustrating to read because the 80% breakup is Gil speaking in his single-minded hockey way and Sebastian hating it but not actually telling Gil why. Both of them need to read Crucial Conversations or idk at least use their words out loud to each other. Being inside Gil's head with his circular thoughts and the dense writing style was almost too much to handle.
There are some very sweet moments, though. And thankfully none of the Hockey Problems are solved by them winning the cup or some bullcrap because it's still the pre-season when the book ends.
So, not the best Kit Oliver book (that would be Cow Book obviously) but as far as hockey romance goes it's decent enough.
I received an ARC copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
May 23, 2023
I didn't enjoy this at all unfortunately - Seb was awful with all his lies and evasiveness, and clearly Gil wasn't exactly a peach either. There were so many "Really???" moments throughout too; it just didn't hang together.
It really annoys me when a book, or characters in a book, keep insisting someone is an amazing person when they demonstrably aren't, eg . And while we're on that subject, . Really???
I also couldn't root for the team, who frankly felt rubbish and like they should be losing everything.
It really annoys me when a book, or characters in a book, keep insisting someone is an amazing person when they demonstrably aren't, eg . And while we're on that subject, . Really???
I also couldn't root for the team, who frankly felt rubbish and like they should be losing everything.
May 21, 2023
4.5 stars. This book was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. No content warnings really, just lots of emotion. Second-chance romance books can be hit or miss for me; this one was definitely a hit.
Seeing the past and present versions of Sebastian and Gil's relationship gave so much depth to their love story. I definitely have a soft spot for childhood best friend stories. 🥺 The San Francisco Sea Lions being a bit of a disastrous team that could not manage to win definitely reminded me of the Ottawa Centaurs from Rachel Reid's Game Changers series, which I adore. I definitely felt for Sebastian throughout this book and often wanted to shake the crap out of Gil, but once they came together and Sebastian was able to admit why he felt so hurt, it was obvious how in love with each other they were.
Gil's struggle with his father and family legacy was heart wrenching and hard to read at times, but Gil's relationship with the rest of his family made up for it. At a few points, this book felt a bit slow and Gil was a bit too tunnel visioned and that frustrated me.
I hope this author makes this a series and we get a love story for Tommy or Christopher!
Seeing the past and present versions of Sebastian and Gil's relationship gave so much depth to their love story. I definitely have a soft spot for childhood best friend stories. 🥺 The San Francisco Sea Lions being a bit of a disastrous team that could not manage to win definitely reminded me of the Ottawa Centaurs from Rachel Reid's Game Changers series, which I adore. I definitely felt for Sebastian throughout this book and often wanted to shake the crap out of Gil, but once they came together and Sebastian was able to admit why he felt so hurt, it was obvious how in love with each other they were.
Gil's struggle with his father and family legacy was heart wrenching and hard to read at times, but Gil's relationship with the rest of his family made up for it. At a few points, this book felt a bit slow and Gil was a bit too tunnel visioned and that frustrated me.
I hope this author makes this a series and we get a love story for Tommy or Christopher!
July 15, 2023
Horrid spoilt character.
Even with my limited hockey know-how the hockey didn't make sense.
A lot of the story makes no sense.
Don't like them, they're welcome to each other.
Even with my limited hockey know-how the hockey didn't make sense.
A lot of the story makes no sense.
Don't like them, they're welcome to each other.
August 24, 2023
Light Up the Lamp was one the best second chance romances I’ve read. The surprise of meeting again, the hurt and confusion of wondering where it all went wrong, the pining for what they had and what could be, the adjustment of viewing the past thru the pained lens of a teenager to now ten years later as an adult … done to perfection. This book is single POV, which I know is not everyone’s cup of tea but for this book especially, it really works.
This is a story of not just second chances, but learning to live for yourself and the growth that Gil goes thru in this book is such a beautiful thing to witness. He could definitely use some help communicating; I wanted to shake the hell out of him several times before wrapping him up in a big hug because I felt how much effort it took for him to see beyond his singular focus. He struggles to see outside of hockey and the path that was laid out for him. Seb returned into his life at just the right moment.
I adored Gil & Seb so much. You could feel how much love they had for the other underneath the pain that coated the surface. I loved the slow progression of them opening up and learning to trust again. The teasing and banter between them was too funny. And their chemistry was palpable. Another great hockey romance to add to my shelves!
*Now the ensemble of side characters was fabulous as well, so I know we have a lot to look forward to in this series. And I’m definitely here for it!!
This is a story of not just second chances, but learning to live for yourself and the growth that Gil goes thru in this book is such a beautiful thing to witness. He could definitely use some help communicating; I wanted to shake the hell out of him several times before wrapping him up in a big hug because I felt how much effort it took for him to see beyond his singular focus. He struggles to see outside of hockey and the path that was laid out for him. Seb returned into his life at just the right moment.
I adored Gil & Seb so much. You could feel how much love they had for the other underneath the pain that coated the surface. I loved the slow progression of them opening up and learning to trust again. The teasing and banter between them was too funny. And their chemistry was palpable. Another great hockey romance to add to my shelves!
*Now the ensemble of side characters was fabulous as well, so I know we have a lot to look forward to in this series. And I’m definitely here for it!!
May 12, 2023
This book isn't just a sports romance, nor is it a second chance romance. It's those things but at it's heart, it's a journey and I was invested for every aching step of the way. Oliver deploys a masterful use of single POV with exceptional interiority to create a true masterpiece of character development that left me equal parts speechless and anxious. Gil's growth is nuanced, believable, and genuine. Their reunion and the ending of the book were top tier, and though the author's backlist already holds some of my favorite books of all time, this gem blows them out of the water as one of, arguably, Oliver's best works to date. 10/10, no notes. Gimme more.
April 20, 2025
So, this got off to a very rough start, but it did grow on me eventually.
Kit Oliver’s been kind of a mixed bag for me. Fantastic on a sentence level. Extremely good at conveying intimacy. But the internal logic? Not so much. Consistency? Not so much. Cattle Stop was amazingly good. Its sequel? Amazingly bad. But the good stuff is good enough to keep me coming back despite the bad.
Of their published books to date, I left this for last, and put it off for months because of the hockey. Not so much because of other reviewers who’ve said the hockey was badly done. I don’t know hockey, the very concept of team sports is repellent to me. But…
I’m sure this is unfair of me, since this is only the second m/m hockey book I’ve read outside of Taylor Fitzpatrick’s YCMAL-verse. But Fitzpatrick has set the bar for hockey fiction so high that when I see a hockey book by anyone else my instinctive reaction is to turn away so I don’t have to watch them embarrass themselves.
And in a way the hockey is a significant problem for me with this book. Not because it’s full of technical mistakes, I wouldn’t know. I did have a very hard time believing any NHL franchise could ever be the mess portrayed here in terms of facilities and support staff. No matter how awful the history and players, the franchise itself is still a rare and incredibly valuable thing. But the real problem was Gil. Replace professional athlete with virtually any other employment / career component and I would have had a much easier time buying into this story. But you’d have to get at least a dozen different current or former NHL players to read this book and attest that this is a plausible representation before I would even begin to accept the idea that anyone who’s made it to the NHL and been playing there for ten years could possibly be as unassertive off the ice and as blind to his own faults on it as Gil is here.
The writing in the beginning was the other major problem for me. The first several chapters (at the house) felt cluttered and confused. And, I don’t know, maybe that was deliberate? One does occasionally hear people state the shockingly stupid idea that the reader should feel what the character does. Which makes a kind of sense if you’re talking about positive emotions. But the character is confused, so the reader should also be confused or the character is bored, so the reader should be bored. Are you serious? These are some of the stupidest, poorly thought out writing takes I’ve ever heard.
And I entertain that possibility because I think that effect was one of the big problems with the earlier mentioned Cattle Stop sequel. But if that was the intent here it was still a fail, because I didn’t get the sense at all that Gil’s mental state matched the feel of the writing.
Another issue I had was the timeline. It just felt much too compressed for the emotional journey the characters were on. Days where I would expect months. It seemed like the whole story took place in under a week, though looking at events it was first day of training camp to second preseason game, and I don’t know what that would be, so maybe it was actually longer. Failure to signal transitions/time jumps is a flaw I’ve noted in other books by the author.
However
After that long winded gripefest:
Once the story moves away from the house, and I settled in with the cognitive dissonance of Gil as a professional athlete, I started to like, and care about the characters. I set it down for the night and was anxious to get back to it the next morning.
The sentence level writing is far more skillful than one usually gets in genre fiction. There are absolutely perfect passages scattered throughout the book when Oliver’s conveying emotion, loss, or describing a particular character’s tics.
So I can’t give this five stars. I’m not sure if it’s one I’d reread, though I might study particular lines, or paragraphs.
But I am looking forward to whatever Oliver puts out next.
Kit Oliver’s been kind of a mixed bag for me. Fantastic on a sentence level. Extremely good at conveying intimacy. But the internal logic? Not so much. Consistency? Not so much. Cattle Stop was amazingly good. Its sequel? Amazingly bad. But the good stuff is good enough to keep me coming back despite the bad.
Of their published books to date, I left this for last, and put it off for months because of the hockey. Not so much because of other reviewers who’ve said the hockey was badly done. I don’t know hockey, the very concept of team sports is repellent to me. But…
I’m sure this is unfair of me, since this is only the second m/m hockey book I’ve read outside of Taylor Fitzpatrick’s YCMAL-verse. But Fitzpatrick has set the bar for hockey fiction so high that when I see a hockey book by anyone else my instinctive reaction is to turn away so I don’t have to watch them embarrass themselves.
And in a way the hockey is a significant problem for me with this book. Not because it’s full of technical mistakes, I wouldn’t know. I did have a very hard time believing any NHL franchise could ever be the mess portrayed here in terms of facilities and support staff. No matter how awful the history and players, the franchise itself is still a rare and incredibly valuable thing. But the real problem was Gil. Replace professional athlete with virtually any other employment / career component and I would have had a much easier time buying into this story. But you’d have to get at least a dozen different current or former NHL players to read this book and attest that this is a plausible representation before I would even begin to accept the idea that anyone who’s made it to the NHL and been playing there for ten years could possibly be as unassertive off the ice and as blind to his own faults on it as Gil is here.
The writing in the beginning was the other major problem for me. The first several chapters (at the house) felt cluttered and confused. And, I don’t know, maybe that was deliberate? One does occasionally hear people state the shockingly stupid idea that the reader should feel what the character does. Which makes a kind of sense if you’re talking about positive emotions. But the character is confused, so the reader should also be confused or the character is bored, so the reader should be bored. Are you serious? These are some of the stupidest, poorly thought out writing takes I’ve ever heard.
And I entertain that possibility because I think that effect was one of the big problems with the earlier mentioned Cattle Stop sequel. But if that was the intent here it was still a fail, because I didn’t get the sense at all that Gil’s mental state matched the feel of the writing.
Another issue I had was the timeline. It just felt much too compressed for the emotional journey the characters were on. Days where I would expect months. It seemed like the whole story took place in under a week, though looking at events it was first day of training camp to second preseason game, and I don’t know what that would be, so maybe it was actually longer. Failure to signal transitions/time jumps is a flaw I’ve noted in other books by the author.
However
After that long winded gripefest:
Once the story moves away from the house, and I settled in with the cognitive dissonance of Gil as a professional athlete, I started to like, and care about the characters. I set it down for the night and was anxious to get back to it the next morning.
The sentence level writing is far more skillful than one usually gets in genre fiction. There are absolutely perfect passages scattered throughout the book when Oliver’s conveying emotion, loss, or describing a particular character’s tics.
So I can’t give this five stars. I’m not sure if it’s one I’d reread, though I might study particular lines, or paragraphs.
But I am looking forward to whatever Oliver puts out next.
May 15, 2023
What a wonderful story this was! This is friends to lovers who then went separate ways to meet up again and start all over. While playing hockey. For a team that is terrible.
Gil has lived and breathed hockey his entire life. His father was a star player and raised his 3 sons playing hockey. Living only for this sport and nothing else. He drilled it into Gil and his brothers. Two of them grew up to become hockey players while one basically said “screw this” and did his own thing.
Gil knows he hasn’t been playing his best lately but he is going to start this next season better than ever. His little brother gets the news that’s he’s being traded to Gil’s team in San Diego. This is a dream come true for Gil. Too bad that dream literally lasts mere minutes. Gil gets a call that he was also traded. To San Francisco, the newest team in the league and the team no one wants to play for. Gil needs to get out of this ASAP. His father & his agent tell him they’ll get him traded but in the meantime he has no choice but to move to San Francisco.
Sebastian was Gil’s neighbor and childhood best friend. That friendship grew into love and while playing hockey these two were inseparable throughout high school. They went to college together and were roommates and to Gil nothing could be better, except getting drafted into the NHL. When he gets the news he’s been waiting for he promises Sebastian he’ll keep in touch and packs up and leaves. Sebastian slowly pulls away until he is no longer answering Gil’s phone calls or messages. Gil doesn’t understand what happened but he has hockey and that’s his dream.
The story takes place ten years after Gil and Sebastian have gone their separate ways. Sebastian has been coaching hockey and is now an assistant coach for San Francisco. These two are thrown together again, they have to share a hotel room (oops only one bed), and Gil wants to know if they can be friends again.
The San Francisco Sea Lions are a very new and very unstructured team. Gil cannot believe his luck, the rink is a mess, the players don’t care and the coach doesn’t seem to know how to control them. But Sebastian is here and until Gil is traded he can focus on them becoming friends again. But as they grow closer Sebastian still won’t talk about why he pulled away ten years ago.
There was a lot here to unpack, there are issues Gil has to deal with that he is blind to at first. Sebastian has lived a life apart from Gil and now has other obligations that take priority. He can’t become romantically involved with Gil again, not when Gil has one foot out the door. These two are meant to be though, they become friends without even trying, like it was fated that they find their way back to each other.
It was so fun getting to know the other Sea Lion players along with their coach and general manager. There is a lot of work to be done to get this team in shape and if Gil could just see the potential there he could make something of it. There’s a lot of push and pull and sone miscommunication, or lack of communication. That part was definitely frustrating. But there is also a lot of family stress that Gil is dealing with. His father is a horrible person, he doesn’t seem to care for his sons other than what they can do in their hockey careers. He does some very despicable things.
I also loved Gil’s brothers and his mother. He has a great support system if he could only open his eyes and see past his father.
I loved seeing Gil and Sebastian work through their past and finally get the future they deserve. There’s a lot of hockey in the book too, which I love! There is so much to love and I cannot wait for other stories to come from these characters!
ARC received for review
All thoughts and opinions are my own
Gil has lived and breathed hockey his entire life. His father was a star player and raised his 3 sons playing hockey. Living only for this sport and nothing else. He drilled it into Gil and his brothers. Two of them grew up to become hockey players while one basically said “screw this” and did his own thing.
Gil knows he hasn’t been playing his best lately but he is going to start this next season better than ever. His little brother gets the news that’s he’s being traded to Gil’s team in San Diego. This is a dream come true for Gil. Too bad that dream literally lasts mere minutes. Gil gets a call that he was also traded. To San Francisco, the newest team in the league and the team no one wants to play for. Gil needs to get out of this ASAP. His father & his agent tell him they’ll get him traded but in the meantime he has no choice but to move to San Francisco.
Sebastian was Gil’s neighbor and childhood best friend. That friendship grew into love and while playing hockey these two were inseparable throughout high school. They went to college together and were roommates and to Gil nothing could be better, except getting drafted into the NHL. When he gets the news he’s been waiting for he promises Sebastian he’ll keep in touch and packs up and leaves. Sebastian slowly pulls away until he is no longer answering Gil’s phone calls or messages. Gil doesn’t understand what happened but he has hockey and that’s his dream.
The story takes place ten years after Gil and Sebastian have gone their separate ways. Sebastian has been coaching hockey and is now an assistant coach for San Francisco. These two are thrown together again, they have to share a hotel room (oops only one bed), and Gil wants to know if they can be friends again.
The San Francisco Sea Lions are a very new and very unstructured team. Gil cannot believe his luck, the rink is a mess, the players don’t care and the coach doesn’t seem to know how to control them. But Sebastian is here and until Gil is traded he can focus on them becoming friends again. But as they grow closer Sebastian still won’t talk about why he pulled away ten years ago.
There was a lot here to unpack, there are issues Gil has to deal with that he is blind to at first. Sebastian has lived a life apart from Gil and now has other obligations that take priority. He can’t become romantically involved with Gil again, not when Gil has one foot out the door. These two are meant to be though, they become friends without even trying, like it was fated that they find their way back to each other.
It was so fun getting to know the other Sea Lion players along with their coach and general manager. There is a lot of work to be done to get this team in shape and if Gil could just see the potential there he could make something of it. There’s a lot of push and pull and sone miscommunication, or lack of communication. That part was definitely frustrating. But there is also a lot of family stress that Gil is dealing with. His father is a horrible person, he doesn’t seem to care for his sons other than what they can do in their hockey careers. He does some very despicable things.
I also loved Gil’s brothers and his mother. He has a great support system if he could only open his eyes and see past his father.
I loved seeing Gil and Sebastian work through their past and finally get the future they deserve. There’s a lot of hockey in the book too, which I love! There is so much to love and I cannot wait for other stories to come from these characters!
ARC received for review
All thoughts and opinions are my own
May 17, 2023
I really enjoyed this one. Kit Oliver is quickly becoming a favourite of mine in the romance genre. The writing feels angsty enough without being too dramatic and romantic enough without me wanting to poke my eyes out! 😆
Both MCs were very likeable and the initial “mystery” surrounding their past played out quite well without dragging on for chapter after chapter.
One of my favourite hockey romances for sure. Can’t wait for more from this author.
Both MCs were very likeable and the initial “mystery” surrounding their past played out quite well without dragging on for chapter after chapter.
One of my favourite hockey romances for sure. Can’t wait for more from this author.
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March 12, 2024This was one of the times where the writing style just didn’t mesh with me. I can’t even pin point why, it just never flowed while reading.
I kept waiting for this to get good… and it just doesn’t. It’s such a boring, downer of a book, even a third of the way through. Give me something. I trudged through it, but I can’t say I ever enjoyed it.
I kept waiting for this to get good… and it just doesn’t. It’s such a boring, downer of a book, even a third of the way through. Give me something. I trudged through it, but I can’t say I ever enjoyed it.
June 4, 2023
3.50 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Early on I thought this would be my next obsession so it pains me deeply that this fell short for me in several ways 😕 I struggled between 3 and 4 stars, but ultimately that yearning and elation I should have felt for Gil and Sebastian never came the way I wanted it to.
Gil and Sebastian were neighbors and grew up next door to each other. Both were heavily involved in hockey and each other, so when their formative years came around that friendship developed into so much more. They were side by side, in love, and with each other day in and day out. That is until Gil got called up to the NHL during his sophomore year of college and went trekking off to his new life. Gil desperately tried to keep in contact with Sebastian but got the fade out from him and the two have not spoken or seen each other in 10 yrs.
Fast forward to present day. Gil gets traded to the bottom of the barrel NHL team and Sebastian happens to have just taken a new job as an assistant coach for that very team. The book has friends-to-lovers, second chance, and forced proximity. I’m going to get into spoilers so I’d stop reading now 😁
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⛔️
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🛑✋🏼🛑✋🏼🛑 SPOILERS 🛑✋🏼🛑✋🏼🛑
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I enjoyed the beginning of this book quite a bit. The tension and awkwardness between Gil and Sebastian was palpable. But as time went on it became very obvious (at least to me) that Gil was not self-aware and the blame for the end of their friendship/relationship probably came from him. Because that was so apparent it was very hard not to find the situation very frustrating. Some thoughts…
-One thing Kit does well is write complicated parental relationships that never get resolved. Real life is a mess and sometimes you will have issues with a parent forever. So Gil’s dad being a major asshat who manipulated him like puppet was done very well. That said it was a struggle waiting for Gil to start making the connection that his Dad was not a good person. It went from sad to annoying quickly.
-I enjoy Kit’s romances because they feel like stories based in reality. That said, I had to suspend belief a lot that 10 yrs went by without Gil never hearing one word about Sebastian, especially that HE WAS MARRIED FOR 5 YEARS AND HAD A KID. Maybe it’s me, but their parents were still neighbors, his brothers still saw Sebastian across the yard, and no one knew or said a word? I just couldn’t buy it.
-To segue from my last point, the revelation about Sebastian’s life was a sucker punch. It was also what dampened a lot of my feelings for the pair. Sebastian had a 7-8 yr long relationship, part of which they were married, with an old mutual college friend of his and Gil’s. Like they had a son together! It once again became very hard to suspend belief that Sebastian was carrying a torch for Gil whilst having another (great and happy according to Sebastian) life. Plus the added “we’re still best buddies and we now talk about our relationships even though we just got divorced” ex angle lessened it even more for me. I think I mostly just wish the ex had remained a background character instead of someone Sebastian defends nonstop and who has heart to hearts with Gil. This is a time I wish Kit had gone the more traditional romance route where the ex is mentioned and never heard of again.
I still will continue reading every story Kit puts out, but I didn’t love this the way I wanted to 🤷🏻♀️
Early on I thought this would be my next obsession so it pains me deeply that this fell short for me in several ways 😕 I struggled between 3 and 4 stars, but ultimately that yearning and elation I should have felt for Gil and Sebastian never came the way I wanted it to.
Gil and Sebastian were neighbors and grew up next door to each other. Both were heavily involved in hockey and each other, so when their formative years came around that friendship developed into so much more. They were side by side, in love, and with each other day in and day out. That is until Gil got called up to the NHL during his sophomore year of college and went trekking off to his new life. Gil desperately tried to keep in contact with Sebastian but got the fade out from him and the two have not spoken or seen each other in 10 yrs.
Fast forward to present day. Gil gets traded to the bottom of the barrel NHL team and Sebastian happens to have just taken a new job as an assistant coach for that very team. The book has friends-to-lovers, second chance, and forced proximity. I’m going to get into spoilers so I’d stop reading now 😁
⚠️
⛔️
⚠️
⛔️
⚠️
⛔️
⚠️
⛔️
⚠️
⛔️
🛑✋🏼🛑✋🏼🛑 SPOILERS 🛑✋🏼🛑✋🏼🛑
⚠️
⛔️
⚠️
⛔️
⚠️
⛔️
⚠️
⛔️
⚠️
⛔️
I enjoyed the beginning of this book quite a bit. The tension and awkwardness between Gil and Sebastian was palpable. But as time went on it became very obvious (at least to me) that Gil was not self-aware and the blame for the end of their friendship/relationship probably came from him. Because that was so apparent it was very hard not to find the situation very frustrating. Some thoughts…
-One thing Kit does well is write complicated parental relationships that never get resolved. Real life is a mess and sometimes you will have issues with a parent forever. So Gil’s dad being a major asshat who manipulated him like puppet was done very well. That said it was a struggle waiting for Gil to start making the connection that his Dad was not a good person. It went from sad to annoying quickly.
-I enjoy Kit’s romances because they feel like stories based in reality. That said, I had to suspend belief a lot that 10 yrs went by without Gil never hearing one word about Sebastian, especially that HE WAS MARRIED FOR 5 YEARS AND HAD A KID. Maybe it’s me, but their parents were still neighbors, his brothers still saw Sebastian across the yard, and no one knew or said a word? I just couldn’t buy it.
-To segue from my last point, the revelation about Sebastian’s life was a sucker punch. It was also what dampened a lot of my feelings for the pair. Sebastian had a 7-8 yr long relationship, part of which they were married, with an old mutual college friend of his and Gil’s. Like they had a son together! It once again became very hard to suspend belief that Sebastian was carrying a torch for Gil whilst having another (great and happy according to Sebastian) life. Plus the added “we’re still best buddies and we now talk about our relationships even though we just got divorced” ex angle lessened it even more for me. I think I mostly just wish the ex had remained a background character instead of someone Sebastian defends nonstop and who has heart to hearts with Gil. This is a time I wish Kit had gone the more traditional romance route where the ex is mentioned and never heard of again.
I still will continue reading every story Kit puts out, but I didn’t love this the way I wanted to 🤷🏻♀️
July 26, 2023
Loved it! Fantastic, I don’t know how I ever doubted it. Does this mean I need to read the straight romance by Kit Oliver bc it’s the only one I haven’t read yet? (Or does it mean that Kit Oliver needs to write another book? Only time will tell.)
Anyway, marking for spoilers even though it’s not as though there are twists exactly (although I did GASP when Sebastian’s co-parent’s identity was revealed, that’s the kind of surprise romance novels need more of, just the right amount of foreshadowing but still super fun and unexpected).
I loved the subversion of the hockey season narrative. Look, I get that exposition-ing about where in the season they are and how far they get in the playoffs is a key way hockey romance authors mark the passage of time, but a monotonous grind is not that much more fun to read about than to live. I really enjoyed that this book gets in, there’s one pre-season game, and then it gets out. That’s all you need!
Also great use of single POV - the way we slowly learn the real deal as Gil slowly figures out the obvious/escapes the control of his dad’s brainwashing/gets his act together is great. You start by thinking Sebastian’s a jerk and then suddenly you’re reading like “Gil he’s the perfect man! Don’t ruin your own life!!”
Finally I will say this was an excellent off-ramp from an AO3 HP fanfic thing I’ve been going through. :/ As usually happens with that kind of thing I read all the good ones I could find and then ended up trying and DNFing a series of less good ones… when I reached the point where I DNFed two post-war Drarry fics that turned out to condone police brutality *in a row* I knew I just needed to stop lol. This book was the perfectly wholesome rejoinder I needed. I read it in basically one gulp, if anything I just wish it had been longer! (But it was unfortunately also the perfect length.)
Anyway, marking for spoilers even though it’s not as though there are twists exactly (although I did GASP when Sebastian’s co-parent’s identity was revealed, that’s the kind of surprise romance novels need more of, just the right amount of foreshadowing but still super fun and unexpected).
I loved the subversion of the hockey season narrative. Look, I get that exposition-ing about where in the season they are and how far they get in the playoffs is a key way hockey romance authors mark the passage of time, but a monotonous grind is not that much more fun to read about than to live. I really enjoyed that this book gets in, there’s one pre-season game, and then it gets out. That’s all you need!
Also great use of single POV - the way we slowly learn the real deal as Gil slowly figures out the obvious/escapes the control of his dad’s brainwashing/gets his act together is great. You start by thinking Sebastian’s a jerk and then suddenly you’re reading like “Gil he’s the perfect man! Don’t ruin your own life!!”
Finally I will say this was an excellent off-ramp from an AO3 HP fanfic thing I’ve been going through. :/ As usually happens with that kind of thing I read all the good ones I could find and then ended up trying and DNFing a series of less good ones… when I reached the point where I DNFed two post-war Drarry fics that turned out to condone police brutality *in a row* I knew I just needed to stop lol. This book was the perfectly wholesome rejoinder I needed. I read it in basically one gulp, if anything I just wish it had been longer! (But it was unfortunately also the perfect length.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 8, 2023
I came here for the second chance romance, which I sort of got, considering how we never really understand why Seb and Gil were in love? Are still in love? They have, or had, nor chemistry, no bond, nothing. We get told Seb is amazing, but the only thing I saw was an arsehole trying to pretend he was a decent guy. Well, he wasn't. He got all upset because Gil chose hockey instead of him? Oh, cry me a river, Sebastian. If you ask the person you love of giving up the thing that makes them happy, a career, a hobby, anything, do you even really love them? My answer is no, you selfish prick. And then he acts all hurt?? And he manages to hide his ex husband and kid from Gil for ten years even if their parents are literally next door neighboours? Don't know you, but I know how many times my neighbours flush their toilets, you know. Thin walls. Anyway.
The brothers? Boring.
The relationship? Boring and useless.
The hockey? RIDICULOUS. I mean I'm Sicilian. I've never seen a hockey game in my life, and even I knew this is just ludicrous. The Sea Lion were supposed to be a NHL team, a professional team. If I make a football comparison, considering I know football best, even the worst team in the Premier League is of course a professional team, made of professional athletes, who train in a suitable facility, and have staff to work with them. The idea of portraying a professional hockey team like this rundown school little get together to play once in a while was absolutely shocking. Took credibility out of the whole equation, imho.
So no. No redeeming qualities on this one I'm afraid.
The brothers? Boring.
The relationship? Boring and useless.
The hockey? RIDICULOUS. I mean I'm Sicilian. I've never seen a hockey game in my life, and even I knew this is just ludicrous. The Sea Lion were supposed to be a NHL team, a professional team. If I make a football comparison, considering I know football best, even the worst team in the Premier League is of course a professional team, made of professional athletes, who train in a suitable facility, and have staff to work with them. The idea of portraying a professional hockey team like this rundown school little get together to play once in a while was absolutely shocking. Took credibility out of the whole equation, imho.
So no. No redeeming qualities on this one I'm afraid.
July 16, 2023
4.5 ⭐️
This book had two things I usually avoid at all costs : miscommunication and divorce/children. And honestly, I am happy that I was blinded by the bait of hockey romance and was unaware of these things because I thoroughly enjoyed this book! (Also, the child plays an incredibly minor role. I think we spend maybe half of one chapter in his presence, so I was able to handle him.)
Gil and Sebastian are both very sweet and although I was frustrated by the miscommunication here and there, the fundamental difference in goals/priorities that caused that miscommunication made sense and I forgive them both for being a lil unreasonable about it lol.
This is the second Kit Oliver book I have read and I loved it as much as the first! Definitely recommend Cattle Stop also by this author if you liked this and second chance romance!
This book had two things I usually avoid at all costs : miscommunication and divorce/children. And honestly, I am happy that I was blinded by the bait of hockey romance and was unaware of these things because I thoroughly enjoyed this book! (Also, the child plays an incredibly minor role. I think we spend maybe half of one chapter in his presence, so I was able to handle him.)
Gil and Sebastian are both very sweet and although I was frustrated by the miscommunication here and there, the fundamental difference in goals/priorities that caused that miscommunication made sense and I forgive them both for being a lil unreasonable about it lol.
This is the second Kit Oliver book I have read and I loved it as much as the first! Definitely recommend Cattle Stop also by this author if you liked this and second chance romance!
October 4, 2023
wanted to like this so bad (i liked author’s previous) i don’t know what went wrong but like rythm just doesn’t exist
you’d think one would know a bit about hockey before writing a romance (didn’t feel like it at all)
this was an arc so i didn’t dnf but i was tempted. 1.5 rounded up because i felt kinda bad.
you’d think one would know a bit about hockey before writing a romance (didn’t feel like it at all)
this was an arc so i didn’t dnf but i was tempted. 1.5 rounded up because i felt kinda bad.
June 15, 2024
i needed a good read after my last book and from what i heard you can’t go wrong with hockey boys. it was a pretty good story ngl - the one thing i really found kinda odd is it was real similar plotwise to the other kit oliver book i read? like sub out hockey for farming and the story was…remarkably similar lol
June 23, 2023
You say hockey romance, I say gimme. You say ex best friends to lovers? I’m screaming louder. You say both combined? I come running!!!
These two gave me grey hairs though I swear.
I love the plot where two ex best friends or lovers have a falling out and get a second chance at a happy ending together. But Kit Oliver is famous for miscommunication (or rather non communication) trope!
Broken up after Gil being drafted in the NHL in college he and Seb ended up ignoring each other for years. When landing on the same hockey team again after ten years of being apart, but this time in very different positions, Gil sees his chance of winning Seb back. Only he doesn’t even know why their relationship sank in the first place. And he also doesn’t want to stay on his terrible team in the first place. Or does he?
I wanted to shake Seb so much. Later, when I understood what happened a bit better I understood where he was coming from. I also understood that Gil is a complete dumbass, controlled by his asshole father who’s only interest in life is hockey.
What I didn’t understand was why men in their 30s still act like 16 year olds with a pissed off attitude and hurt feelings.
The story was gripping and I couldn’t stop reading, but at the same time it frustrated me to no end.
I hated how Gil and his brothers were treated by the father, but I also hated how the mother just fell happily into her new life without taking more care of her sons. Real life is a complicated mess and I think Kit Oliver always manages nicely to show that in a very realistic way. There are never nice and easy answers and there’s also never a black and white or a simple right way. That’s what I love most about their books. People can’t be put into nice little packages and so can’t life.
I enjoyed this, while it also frustrates me a lot. So it’s not a 5 star for me, but it might be for you?
These two gave me grey hairs though I swear.
I love the plot where two ex best friends or lovers have a falling out and get a second chance at a happy ending together. But Kit Oliver is famous for miscommunication (or rather non communication) trope!
Broken up after Gil being drafted in the NHL in college he and Seb ended up ignoring each other for years. When landing on the same hockey team again after ten years of being apart, but this time in very different positions, Gil sees his chance of winning Seb back. Only he doesn’t even know why their relationship sank in the first place. And he also doesn’t want to stay on his terrible team in the first place. Or does he?
I wanted to shake Seb so much. Later, when I understood what happened a bit better I understood where he was coming from. I also understood that Gil is a complete dumbass, controlled by his asshole father who’s only interest in life is hockey.
What I didn’t understand was why men in their 30s still act like 16 year olds with a pissed off attitude and hurt feelings.
The story was gripping and I couldn’t stop reading, but at the same time it frustrated me to no end.
I hated how Gil and his brothers were treated by the father, but I also hated how the mother just fell happily into her new life without taking more care of her sons. Real life is a complicated mess and I think Kit Oliver always manages nicely to show that in a very realistic way. There are never nice and easy answers and there’s also never a black and white or a simple right way. That’s what I love most about their books. People can’t be put into nice little packages and so can’t life.
I enjoyed this, while it also frustrates me a lot. So it’s not a 5 star for me, but it might be for you?
August 5, 2023
The most unreliable sad boy™ narrator to have ever narrated (in third person present POV which took a while to get used to tbf).
Gil is a sad boy hockey player. He left for the NHL 10 years ago, leaving behind his childhood best friend and love of his life never understanding why he stopped picking up his phone and they... were no more. Sprinkle in a trade, a new city and some forced proximity and Gil has a lot of learning and unpacking to do in a matter of days which will define the rest of his life.
I enjoyed this. The only reason I was okay with the somewhat low levels of grovelling on both parts and very quick was because they were just teens and Gil had been
Quotes
NSFW infos:
- One out gay man, tops
- One gay man, out to his family but not to the world but it's not a plot point, hockey player, bottoms
Gil is a sad boy hockey player. He left for the NHL 10 years ago, leaving behind his childhood best friend and love of his life never understanding why he stopped picking up his phone and they... were no more. Sprinkle in a trade, a new city and some forced proximity and Gil has a lot of learning and unpacking to do in a matter of days which will define the rest of his life.
I enjoyed this. The only reason I was okay with the somewhat low levels of grovelling on both parts and very quick was because they were just teens and Gil had been
Quotes
"He holds out his fist in and old-forgotten habit, grinning when Sebastian raises his hand like he always did, ready to smack against Gil's in the start of their special handshake. But Sebastian just runs his hand over his face again. Gil looks down, his fist still outstretched. Cheeks burning, he quickly shoves it into his pocket like he meant to do that the entire time." (p. 91)
"...look we're already hanging out. See, we can watch baseball."
"You hate baseball."
"I do not. Look at them swinging their little bats and running in a big circle, they're doing so good."
"It's not a good idea."
"To play that dumb sport? No shit."
(p. 145)
NSFW infos:
- One out gay man, tops
- One gay man, out to his family but not to the world but it's not a plot point, hockey player, bottoms
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