Some part of me wants to give in and read the books but the other part of me knows how she writes Shane (I do mean overall but I’m specifically talking about his physical descriptions) like uhhhhhhhhhhh I’m good actually
🙂↕️🙂↕️🙂↕️🙂↕️🙂↕️ anon I am and was you and actually am still holding your hand and I’m kissing your knuckles if that’s something you’re cool and chill with because I just feel this ask very strongly aksnfks
Rachel Reid as a craftsperson does not have a middle ground. She has very fun very satisfying high highs, and very frustrating very white liberal woman low lows. As lows, could it be Worse? Yeah. She could be #Evil. Like.. it could be Malicious when she writes about her two love interests of color through a lens of orientalism and fetishization rather than mere unexamined racism leading to the perpetuation of one and the same. It could be Malicious when she talks about Eric and (potentially though less so)Troy and (particularly most definitely my god somebody delete MyFitnessPal from his phone!!!!) Shane’s disordered eating as a quirky anal side effect of the sport and not literal orthorexia. It could be Malicious when the NHL organization being the villain takes minimum the 3rd book to be discussed, certainly the 5th & 6th book, and everything before that considers the villain just like “Old School Hockey Culture” which is why millions of people were able to be genuinely surprised by the comments the USA male Olympics hockey team made with Kash Patel because they were like “crazy how they’d throw away all that good publicity the NHL just got from Heated Rivalry😧” — I never get the vibe from the books that it is malicious when I bump into one of Rachel’s lows, but that isn’t really the point, is it? Intent can only carry one so far when impact is there, right??
Like. The problem of these novels (and I’ll remind you and everyone that I am not an expert or even frequent reader of contemporary romance novels, so I welcome any and all correction) is that they’re simultaneously trying to do Too Much and trying to do Too Little. I mean they’re trying to do Too Much—they’re trying to take on deeply entrenched beliefs about the top 3 most watched sport in the world, trying to fundamentally break down hockey’s homophobia and toxic masculinity while also tackling its issues with mental health and misogyny & rape culture and substance abuse, and for funsies it’ll occasionally talk a little bit too about race and classism. But they’re also trying to Too Little— they’re romance novels, they’re erotica, we’re here for the finger blasting, we’re here for the overnights at the fancy chalets and the swoons when the hunk shows up on the other hunk’s (because there’s only one bear, except oh wait we don’t use the word bear and none of the fancasts bother remembering that he’s hairy and round they just are like “well he’s not built like a Marvel actor so that’s a non-athlete to me” and call it a day) doorstep. Things that are Big T Traumas are wrapped up by the end of act 3, in time for the big damn kiss. The NHL and hockey culture itself isn’t going to dismantle and all the problems mentioned above still Exist, they have simply been given a bandaid on an individual level for the sake of that individual novel: Scott Hunter kisses Kip on live tv, Ryan Price quits hockey before his reliance on pain medication can kill him, Dallas Kent is arrested because 5 women risked everything to come forward with official charges against him. But the sun still rises and falls on old institutions. There’s supposed to be this ~feeling~ that hollanov being such superstars together can be powerful enough to make a deep entrenched change; like two Scott Hunters put together. And I guess we’ll see what Unrivaled looks like, but I kinda anticipate landing somewhere in the same pot of soup. A happy ending for Ilya and Shane, and the Centaurs and the Kingfisher, but hockey evergreen. Because what more and what less could we expect from books in this genre, from this author?
And while those lows are hard, they’re frustrating and well worth talking about and analyzing and diving deep, the stuff in these books that is good? It’s really fucking good! I have not had a bad time reading these books, and I’ll be so honest with you, I expected to—!!!!! I went in wanting to see what was different from page to screen (I love adaptational necessities and adaptational choices, one of my fav niche podcasts for a while was one that’s GOT critical but they love ASOIAF and I was just so same hat about it akdjfks) and I wanted to be able to get that sweet sweet internal monologue shit that can only exist in a book, esp with child of my flesh Shane Hollander. And I have gotten that, I have also gotten a lot of eye rolling, I have gotten a lifelong nemesis in the form of audiobook narrator Tor Thom, and I have gotten a lot of laughs a lot of squee and a lot of lip biting. There’s genuinely touching moments, genuinely cinematic images, and genuinely a lot of tropes used to their effective purpose.
I can’t will Rachel into being a better writer. Do I wish a fellow fat disabled queer woman could act with a little more ,, intent? Thoughtfulness? Yeah, absolutely! Do I think she will? I’m not holding my breath.
I also can’t decide for you if you should read the books or not, but I can say once again that your instincts are pretty spot on aksnfks but that if you do read them, you’ve got a lot of lovable boys coming your way. And Scott Hunter, who is perfectly likable <3
I’ll tell you what I did and recommend, if that’s any help. I recommend first of all renting the books from your local library instead of purchasing them, one because I always suggest that but two in case you didn’t feel great about giving Rachel full financial support. She gets a little when the library buys their copies of course, but negligible when considering how many hundreds will read that copy. Next, I recommend listening to them as audiobooks (yes even tho Tor Thom is a menace; he only does the first 3 and it actually makes one so goddamn happy to have Cooper North step in that it might all be worth it — never tell Tor Thom I even joked about that 😩😭). I say do the audiobooks for a few reasons; I do primarily because I’ve had a cognitive hard time with long fiction since becoming disabled back in 2019 and audio helps so so so much with that, but also because then you have like a Set Length Of Time this will take you. Like if the book is at one of Rachel’s lows it can be easy to slow or stall or quit and then you lose all the good that is to come, but if you look at the timer and there’s 4hrs left, sure it’s frustrating as hell that Scott sees nothing wrong with gifting his bf of like two months a $50k check and then getting pissy when ~for whatever reason~ Kip refuses it, but also like..,,, 4hrs?? That’s like 3 podcast episodes. You can live through that! And then it doesn’t even take all that long to get fun again. So it just keeps things on the rails I think, it’s saved me from some dnf’s. The third reason for audiobook it is keeps the hands free for jorking it 😜🤪 but that’s between you and your hockey god🤫 The thing to keep in mind about the library is that these books are hot ticket items rn, everyone is clambering for them!! I had like 6 weeks to wait in between book 3 and 4 I think, just because of holds. I was like the 130th+ person in line when I made my reservation for each one, and my local library has like 30-50 copies of each book depending on which one it is. So the library is a great option for those not in a hurry lol
Here’s some general library tips, not at all hockey smut book related, that I love to share but don’t think I do often enough maybe! Anyone can and should have a library card !! I have three !!!!! It’s so very easy, most local libraries you can sign up online with your address these days as the easiest side of the scale, the hardest is going into a branch with an id or a piece of mail with your address on it, so doable for most folks! And you can do so much, obviously renting all the physical media at the library itself, but through things like your library’s website or the Libby app you can rent ebooks or audiobooks, and unlike audible or the audible’s somehow even more expensive cousins, always free babey💋 if you don’t wanna listen to me, please at least listen to like every 90s cartoon character and also Matilda <3
Lastly, if you don’t ever wanna read the hockey smut books and just stick to the show and fic, more fucking power to you anon ✨ I hope my hockey smut tag has been fun for you, and I am always happy to answer any questions you have about the books to save you the trouble of having to dive in yourself. I promise to answer as best I can ! ty ly bb
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