Taylor Fitzpatrick

I made the mistake of reading the reviews before I picked this up. I recommend going into this knowing this is an emotional and exceptionally well written sports romance, and nothing more. Really, I applaud the writing when compared to most other sports romance. So refreshing when the characters' behavior or reactions don't make me cringe.

Like I said, I knew going in that this was going to be a tear jerker. And that one of the main characters was going to die. It soon became apparent which one, and I kept getting emotional about the weirdest things, throughout, knowing where things were headed. In the end, I full on cried for the last couple of chapters. In the beginning the book was a little unexpectedly smutty, but that's basically just a part of laying down the groundwork. This book is mostly about love. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Not gonna lie, I'm still crying.… (mais)

I love Taylor Fitzpatrick's writing. I love it. The biggest issue I have with a lot of romance novels is the writing, where you can see the author just wants to smash out some smut and some overly exaggerated drama and emotion, all the while sacrificing any attention to the actual craft of writing. That is not the case with Fitzpatrick. My love might also have something to do her writing in third person, which I vastly prefer to first person (which, again, is the route a lot of romance writers go).

I really empathized with the main character, which is a pretty unexpected achievement considering what an asshole he was most of the book. The thing is, it's so painfully realistic. This is what lifelong loneliness and neglect does to a person. When you are all you have, you pick the hedgehog defence. No one can hurt you if you push everyone away before they have a chance. You don't trust anyone to be kind or genuine when that hasn't been your experience in the past. You're suspicious, you're venomous, you are physically incapable of making yourself vulnerable. It becomes impossible to be the one to put yourself on the line, when even the possibility of rejection makes you feel like you can't breathe, even more so when you're convinced that's the only possible outcome. And all the while you treat other people like shit, no one feels shittier about it than you.

It says on the series page that And Then should be coming out in March 2021 and I cannot fucking wait.

//Re-read in 12/2021 - So turns out, And Then did not, in fact, come out in March 2021, and as of this re-read, is yet to be published officially. I have, however, paid the author for the ARC of it because I simply cannot wait any longer. I wanted to re-read this before getting on with it, to have the story so far fresh in my mind. I'm picking the sequel up with equal amounts of hope and trepidation, but I'm so happy that I'll finally get to find out what comes next.… (mais)