Most Valuable Player / A.M. Woody / Book Review
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
Cameron Morelli is a god. A football god, anyway. And worse, he knows it. There's nobody he can't charm. That's part of his charm. So imagine his utter shame (and complete bafflement) when he's rejected by the team's new water boy, Mason Gray.
Mason doesn't want anything to do with someone as arrogant as Cameron. Especially now, when he's still recovering from the last... relationship he was a part of. He's got enough on his plate without some arrogant, airheaded jock in the mix.
But when Cam gets benched for his poor grades, Coach asks Mason to step in as a tutor. And for the good of the team, Mason agrees, even if it means spending more time together than either of them would prefer.
Mason doesn't want anything to do with someone as arrogant as Cameron. Especially now, when he's still recovering from the last... relationship he was a part of. He's got enough on his plate without some arrogant, airheaded jock in the mix.
But when Cam gets benched for his poor grades, Coach asks Mason to step in as a tutor. And for the good of the team, Mason agrees, even if it means spending more time together than either of them would prefer.
THOUGHTS
This book is kind of hard for me to review, because on the one hand, it was cute and cutesy and fun. Everything I could want from a fall sports romance, you know? But then it would hit me with unexpected *trauma* which is... important to talk about, but maybe not in this space? I don't know. I respected the concept, but I don't know that the pieces of it all fit the same puzzle.
This book is kind of hard for me to review, because on the one hand, it was cute and cutesy and fun. Everything I could want from a fall sports romance, you know? But then it would hit me with unexpected *trauma* which is... important to talk about, but maybe not in this space? I don't know. I respected the concept, but I don't know that the pieces of it all fit the same puzzle.
PROS
| Tropey Cute | Some people have made an enemy of all tropes, but not I. Tropes are used for a reason, especially in genre fiction, and here that reason is abundantly clear: they're fun. So fun, if done correctly. It's a grumpy-sunshine romance, and that's just a good time. No complaints here. |
| Tackling Trauma | While I don't always like the execution of this facet of the story, I really do appreciate that A.M. Woody's characters have some scars to them. They might be young, but bad things can happen even in our youth. Kids can be victims of abuse. Boys and men can be victims of abuse. And it's better to talk about that than ignore it. |
| Character Growth | This might be a romance, but it is also a story where each of these love interests really comes into their own. They both reevaluate how they want to live, how they think people perceive them versus the reality. They both have blinders up at the beginning of the story, based on past traumas, and seeing them take those off and look past them to the truth was great. |
CONS
| This book was hard to swallow because of how it whipped me from one plot line to a drastically different story, back and forth. It's got the grumpy-sunshine formula (himbo included), and that's great. I also don't mind if something light and fluffy gets a bit heavier. But it didn't transition well scene to scene, pairing the fluff with sudden deep, traumatic flashbacks in a way that felt... poorly handled. | Tonal Whiplash |
| In the same vein, the characterization of Mason felt... bad. Icky, I guess. I liked the vision, but I sure didn't like the execution. It might just be my own perception here, but the reading experience was not great because it felt like Mason's trauma was used simply to make his character soft and sensitive. Like, he's been through something bad so now he needs hugs and cuddles (soft baby, sweet baby, let me take care of him...). It felt... not great. Really not great. I didn't like it. | Soft Baby Trauma |
| Building on that critique, it really felt like Cam wasn't, you know, a 17-year-old boy. Cam was uber understanding. He was always ready with exactly what Mason needed to hear. He could say and do and intuit things I don't think most full-grown men could, let alone a teenager. He needed this maturity for the traumatized-soft-baby-boy romance to work, but it doesn't feel realistic at all. In fact, I don't think it should be even an ideal we're striving for. People can be less than perfect and still be a good partner, but for poor traumatized Mason, no less than a flawless love interest like Cam (beneath his fake bravado, which gets so quickly discarded) will do. If you're a real teen who has real trauma, I guess you're out of luck in a world where no 17-year-old like Cam exists. | Ideal Man |
Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
7/10
Those who liked the balance of young love with hard internal struggles found in Julie Halpern & Len Vlahos's Girl on the Ferris Wheel will like this new grumpy-sunshine duo. Those who appreciated the way Time Out by Sean Hayes, Todd Milliner, & Carlyn Greenwald tackled big issues will appreciate how A.M. Woody handles harder topics, too.
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Details
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Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own. |
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