#also i don't think the title is actually supposed to be stylized in all caps as HIM but it's such a silly title i can't help myself

[msmargaretmurry]

I hated HIM soo much!! something about the way the authors wrote gay and bi people rubbed me the wrong way and I could never get over it. But I will say I loved heated rivalry (the game changers book) with my whole heart, even though the other books in the series were not for me. The main couple never reminded me of sid/ovi mainly because it’s impossible for me to visualize sidney crosby in any kind of sexual scenario :/

✨🌟💕💖HIM haters unite!!!💖💕🌟✨

scream, sorry to sidney crosby but this is so funny to me. i support you. you're so valid.

i told someone else that when i answered this ask that i'd elaborate a little on why HIM didn't work for me, but i'm going to put that stuff under a cut in case there are secret HIM fans on here who are getting really tired of me dragging a book they like, lmao.

ok so it has been a while since i read it so i might not remember all the details, but here were my biggest turn-offs for that book. some of these are things i would let slide if other parts of the book were better. like, i WILL let clunky writing slide if the story/characters are really good (but if the story/characters are also bad i just get more pissy about it the more i read). some of these though... eesh.

the writing. sorry, the writing was not very good!! if i am reading a book and i can't stop line-editing in my head as i go, the story is gonna have to do some really heavy lifting to win me over. the worst part for me was how there were a whole bunch of instances where i would read a sentence and go "hm, that's a weird word choice" because the word choices were just like... slightly off of what they were probably supposed to mean? like someone had pulled then from a thesaurus without actually understanding the nuance in meaning between the synonyms. it was really distracting.

the pacing/worldbuilding. this book constantly did the thing where it introduced a person, place, or concept the moment it became important instead of building those things into the story along the way so that when they became important it didn't feel like it was being made up on the spot. once again, really distracting!

the protagonists. the first few chapters made an attempt at developing distinct voices for the two protagonists but that was all out the window by like a quarter of the way through. they had minor personality differences but other than that were near-identical cringeworthy sports bro stereotypes.

the way every woman was treated in the story???? gross

the way bisexuality was treated in the story?????? GROSS

the HOCKEY. this book actually lulled me into a sense of false security because the first few chapters did a decent job with the frozen four, but after that? absolute nonsense. the main characters are college prospects the summer before they go pro and the book had NO grasp of how that process looks or works. like for example one of them is a goalie and his big existential crisis is "i don't know if going pro will be worth it if i'm not immediately the starting goalie for the nhl team i sign with." WELL BUDDY YOU'RE NOT GONNA BE. BECAUSE OF HOW DEVELOPMENT WORKS. WHICH YOU AS A HOCKEY PLAYER AT THIS LEVEL WOULD DEFINITELY KNOW ABOUT. HOPE THIS HELPS. just, no idea how the player-agent relationship works, no idea how the agent-team relationship works, no idea how the prospect-team relationship works.

the sex scenes read like the author(s) learned everything they knew about gay sex from reading mediocre fanfiction published in 2012

(!!!!!!!!!!SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!) the part at the end when whats his face comes out to his nhl team's pr guy and the pr guy is like "no problem buddy we actually already knew because we cyber-stalk all of our prospects! we actually drafted you because we'd been getting some heat for letting all our players of color go and thought a gay player would show we value diversity! so when you wanna come out publicly we already have the press release done!" and whats his face is like huh kinda weird but cool ok! ABSOLUTELY B O N K E R S. not that i wouldn't put it past an nhl team to be like that but oh my god don't act like it's cool and normal instead of total nightmare fuel??

okay. sorry. i'm done now. i buddy-read this book with a friend and she couldn't even finish it because she also hated it. i know a lot of people liked this book according to goodreads, and obviously people are allowed to like things that are not to my taste but lordy. what a bad time for me personally!!!

#ask #hockey for ts #i try not to be this much of a hater on main usually but we can blame the painkillers #also i don't think the title is actually supposed to be stylized in all caps as HIM but it's such a silly title i can't help myself