also. i find it odd that reid spends so much time in the long game refuting shane’s perspective. shane ‘doesn’t know the dark side of hockey.’ shane is ignorant to the problems of others. shane is too obsessed with hockey. shane’s anxieties are insipid and selfish when compared to ilya’s righteous trauma. shane’s definitely not an eating disorder is a topic of ridicule. shane is sulking after being outed again instead of helping with dinner. everyone — ilya, his parents, rose, hayden — tell shane that he’s being ridiculous and small minded, that he isn’t considering others feelings, that he doesn’t appreciate what he has.
but then everyone else is wrong and shane is right. everything he predicted comes to pass. he is outed by his best friend. he is hatecrimed and ostracised by his championship team. his fiance fails to defend his integrity to the press. he goes to another team for less money and is stripped of a letter. like. it’s just so unbelievably bizarre. i understand that reid wrote this as the ‘comeuppance’ and punishment for shane quote unquote ignoring all of ilya’s more important problems, but then why prove him right? why not make him so passively ignorant that the ensuing horror is a total surprise?
reid has spoken about getting upset when people dislike ilya and his actions, so then why write an entire book where the explicit conclusion is that ilya was wrong, and then try to frame it as shane’s fears — while ultimately correct — simply weren’t worth the hassle? and why, at the end of that, is shane still the only one to apologise?
the only explanation here is that rachel reid has unintentionally reinvented cassandra of troy from her own beautiful mind
