Tough Guy (Game Changers #3)

I want wrap Ryan up in the biggest hug in the world and Fabian is just perfection. The narration is fantastic… this book is a giant warm hug and the one of the best ways imaginable to spend a day. Rachel Reid has managed to write 3 totally different hockey books. An insta love, slow burn enemies to lovers, and now a semi-second chance story with 2 heroes that seemingly make no sense together but actually are quite perfect. You instantly fall in love with Ryan Price. I don’t think I have ever fallen for a character faster. I would have never thought that I could fall in love with a character through a failed masturbation scene but my gawd it is brilliant! You just see his whole life in that scene. He is so yearning for more but he is locked in by his high anxiety levels. Fabian is just so sweet. I would never have thought I would love a story between a gentle ginger giant and a cute blue haired musician but this book works and works WELL. This book is always going to be compared to Heated Rivalry and that isn’t quite fair. It is totally different, but not disappointing. Heated Rivalry is quite possibly the best MM book I’ve ever read. It is 6 out of 5 stars. I’ll settle for 5 out of 5 for this beauty! Spoilers And there might be some Ilya sightings. Maybe. And I might have run around my house squealing like a banshee for 10 minutes causing my neighbor to call the cops on me. Jk. The epilogue is epic.

In this series volumes 1 and 2 were hits. Tough Guy the 3rd book was a miss. Could not get into t he main characters enough to enjoy the story.

I went into this book with low expectations despite having loved Heated Rivalry and still managed to be very disappointed. This was supposedly a love story and yet the MCs don’t even go on a date until 2 hours in. Even after they do get together, there is minimal interaction and very little chemistry. I get that this was trying to have an opposites attract dynamic, but there is nothing dynamic about it and it is hard to care about their relationship succeeding. This was also supposed to be a hockey story. However, there were only about 10 mins throughout the entire book dedicated to hockey game play and most of that time was spent taking about fighting. So what did we get instead of romance and hockey? A lot of time spent with their outspoken and sex positive friends, descriptions of clothing and food, internal dialogue about anxiety and insecurity, unsupportive though not openly homophobic parents, repetitive references to their backstory which didn’t manage to provide a sense of who these characters were, and an irrelevant plot twist towards the end involving a character who only briefly appears. This book is a completely tedious read from start to finish.

Ryan is such an easy character to root for. He and Fabian together are just too sweet. For fans of Ilya and Shane, they make an appearance. But I enjoyed Ryan’s story almost as much as theirs!

This is a sappy and sweet hockey romance with an opposites attract theme. I liked the cast of characters. The plot was decent, but a bit to predictable for my taste. I did appreciate the unsubtle \’hockey is for everyone\’ moments in the story. Yes, girls and gay men can play hockey too. Such a shoving idea…? Enjoyable read. Looking forward to the next one.

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