Review: Good integration of actual sports and romance
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 31, 2013
Nice enough contemporary sports romance.My favorite thing about this was the amount of detail about the actual sport that was included. The book showed the players training, playing, obsessing about stats, and following the wins-losses of other teams to keep abreast of their ranking. The heroine, Kelly, is in media relations for the team so we also got enough detail about how media and interviewing works. It didn't overwhelm the story but it was just right enough and just detailed enough so the sport part of the romance wasn't just wallpaper.My least favorite thing about this was the way Kelly's weight was presented as seemingly her most definitive visual signifier for many of the characters.In the past, Kelly had an eating disorder which she developed as a result of having a growth spurt and being taller than kids in school. She felt unattractive throughout college because she was not perceived as being attractive. As the book begins Kelly is 4-years into her recovery from her eating disorder and has a good healthy body weight for her height. And yet character after character in the book are quick to note she is huge, "freakishly tall", a "lard-ass" or a "cow." But given that Kelly is 6'1, 150-ish pounds, athletic and with a low body fat percentage, these oft verbalized characterizations seem puzzling to me. My first thought at the sight of a tall, athletic woman of that height and weight would not be that she was a lard-ass. Venus Williams is 6'1, 160 pounds and she just looks fit. If the book had been written in first person POV, and if it were Kelly's perception, not fact, that this is what everyone thought of her, then it would have made more sense given that she still has some body image issues. But it wasn't and every character seemed very quick to call her fat. So I in turn had a hard time forming a picture of her because all I could think was "Well? is she fat or not?"  The dwelling on her weight took me out of the story sometimes.All the weight stuff aside, the romance part was well done. Kelly and Matt's relationship developed very nicely. They went from enemies to friends to lovers and it felt like a natural progression.I did think the ending was rushed. Matt made a terrible assumption about Kelly which I thought she forgave way too easily. I don't need heroes to grovel, but I did need Kelly to take more time to consider how trust issues factor into their relationship.