It also commits to the hockey part of the equation - A.L.Heard clearly knows the sport and now I know more than I ever thought I would. This is one sloooooooow burn, a strangers to friends to lovers hockey romance that really takes its time getting where it’s going and commits fully to a realistic portrayal of a messy, fragile relationship. Those issues aside, i do think this was mostly a very pleasant book. i feel like some of the side characters actually got more development than he did? i think that decision really hindered his character, and the sudden onslaught of his depression and anxieties left me scratching my head a bit? i think using dual POVs really would’ve enhanced the story for me and fleshed Brady out more. Nick, who is our POV character, was very well developed and fleshed out, but i never really felt we got a good sense of who Brady is? we only really learn about Nick’s idealized version of Brady until right at the end of the story, like the last ten percent, where we suddenly get an info dump of his backstory and his various issues with his sexuality etc. i’d say this was written more as a sports comedy than an actual romance, though, so if romance is what you’re looking for here, just keep that in mind. a lot of the banter (especially the cousin stuff) in the first half of the book could have been easily trimmed without really affecting the story at all. there really was no need for this story to be 400+ pages when the romance doesn’t even really start until the 70% mark, tbh.

This was actually really cute, but it was also waaay too long.

Hockey Bois by A.L. Heard