Hockey Bois

This review will not flow well due to review length limits causing rewording and trimming of some bits. Succinctly: I absolutely adore the characters and enjoyed the book despite its pacing issues, need for an editor, and occasional overload of melodrama - enough that I now own a copy after reading it on KU.

—

Hockey Bois is... a very interesting journey, and I say that in a mostly positive manner. In fact, I daresay that I enjoyed this book and the characters in it enough to forgive the myriad of typos - only one or two egregious enough to make sentences confusing, but please hire an editor anyway - and its other flaws, which I'll mention later. The characters are well fleshed-out, even for an ensemble cast, and I'm so attached to the characters that I'm hungry for a sequel. Seriously, I will gladly read another 400-something pages of Nick and Brady being adorable dorks, Gail being a badass with a heart of gold, Jenna meddling with good intentions (but maybe tone it down some), Terry being infatuated with women stronger than himself, and Young Greg learning how to adult. This is one of those books where I genuinely hate to be through with it because I don't want to leave the characters or their environment.

Spanning from August 2019 through December 2020 in a world graciously devoid of health crises (thank you, dear author), this rather long novel follows the journey of Nick Porter (the MC) and Brady Jensen, two guys who begin as strangers and take an extremely slow path to friendship and ultimately something more. Nick is the mostly-positive guy who's openly gay and Brady is the grumpy guy who's a sweetheart beneath all the layers of gruffness and has some issues handling his own sexuality - for good reason, which is hinted at from early in the book but not revealed until far later. (I actually quite enjoyed having that thread of a mystery, though I do wish his reasons hadn't been revealed quite so late.)

All the while, they're playing hockey in an adult recreational league, and I mean truly playing hockey. I went from not understanding a thing about hockey before I read this book to feeling like I want to go actually pay attention to a game and might even comprehend what's happening on the screen if I do. The author weaves in terminology and slang, actually writes out large chunks of the hockey-playing, namedrops famous players amidst banter, and basically doesn't pull any punches about just how hockey-centric this romance is. And you know what? I didn't mind one iota, because I actually cared enough about the characters to pay attention and never skimmed a single line. I aggressively used the ‘look up in Wikipedia' function of my Kindle app, but I didn't skim.

After some emotionally draining books that were probably too dark and messed up for my mental health, I needed a detox. So I went into this book hoping for a sweet, fluffy romance between sports players. I got that in spades... but also with some angst and frankly unnecessary drama caused by communication issues. I do ultimately think it worked out and I ended up enjoying the angle of mental health (depression, anxiety, a semi-tragic backstory, etc.) and how it shaped the characters' interactions, but man were there ever some annoying parts that I feel dragged the story down and rained on my fluff parade.

There were times I wanted to take a red pen to the existence of Nick's meddling cousins whose antics were far more creepy and overbearing than seemingly intended. For example: At one point, Nick makes it very clear that he does not want to flirt with Brady yet. He even makes it clear that he isn't sure if Brady is into other men. So, two of his cousins steal his phone and play keepaway with it and another cousin tells them which passcode to try. When they get into his phone, they - with no consent from Nick, who's practically begging them not to do it - send a vaguely risque photo of a hockey player from his camera roll as a text to Brady 'from Nick' along with a message asking what his thoughts are on the image. This was an extremely anxiety-inducing scene to read, and yet it was played off as no big deal because the conversation it sparked went well. I can't actually tell you the names of the characters involved, because those cousins either existed solely to be antagonists in the one scene or weren't memorable enough to connect with future appearances.

I did actually like his cousins Jenna and Terry, whose meddling was quite well-intentioned and not anywhere near as gross - such as when they were trying to push Nick to actually partake in communication skills - but I didn't care for the other cousins or the heaps of drama the family brought with it. Or how, despite having a gay son who she allegedly understands and supports, Nick's mother apparently can't comprehend the concept of not labelling the guy he's seeing as his boyfriend when gossiping to the neighbour even though Nick himself has said they aren't yet official and he isn't sure the guy's comfortable being open. For a family we're told and occasionally shown is super supportive, missteps like that and the spoiler make it seem they're perhaps a little more ignorant than Nick believes.

Additionally, Nick's refusal to communicate with Brady over some extremely important issues drove me crazy at points. It was frustrating to read - not necessarily because it was unrealistic, but rather because it was often too realistic. I'm not saying that as a bad thing, but as someone with major anxiety issues myself it got rough at times to see my own patterns of thinking reflected from Nick and realize just how deeply and realistically they were impacting his life in a negative way. I get the “don't rock the boat, I can't handle if it sinks” mentality so much it aches.

There were only a few times where Nick's thought processes didn't seem to make sense from the angle of a guy with some anxiety problems and communication issues, but those were glaring and discordant in how boneheaded and illogical they were compared to the rest of his actions. Such as deciding that calling Brady by a different name from what the other teammates used was somehow being less intimate with him. (Look, man, I get anxiety and I get trying to set boundaries, but that's about like deciding to call your boss SugarLips as a means of making sure nobody gets the impression you want to kiss him.) He also managed to cause intense conflict just by being a complete jerk after Brady backed out of hooking up with him early on. He claims he wants things to go back to how they were, yet he aggressively rejects all hints of how they were to over-correct until he's being an absolute jerk to someone whose only crime was withdrawing consent before they'd ever even gotten started. It felt really confusing and tone deaf, but it still led to a few cute moments where the communication issues were less frustrating and more adorable.

And ultimately, through these gripes of mine, I kept reading. Still I remained invested. The writing style - minus typos - was engaging and fun and very reminiscent of fanfic from the early 2010s in a charmingly nostalgic way. (Unsurprisingly, this author cut her teeth on fanfiction.) I can take or leave sex scenes outside erotica novels, so I didn't care at all that we got closed-door, fade-to-black sex; frankly, that fit the tone a lot better than devolving into raunchy, explicit shagging anyway. I eat up slow-burn romance like it's the good stuff in the Halloween candy dish, as well, so I didn't have any problems with the slow pacing and length of the book - until, ironically, the end when things began to speed up as if the author was on a deadline and needed to rush through the bits I'd have loved to see explored in-depth.

Chief among those bits: Brady's depression. It's not a secret. Frankly, from personal experience, I had the signs pegged from a few chapters into the book. The problem is more that it's never actually given a proper name or shown in depth until 96% into the book. We're given maybe a chapter worth of Nick discovering just how bad Brady's depressive episodes can be, feeling concerned, etc. And that's basically it, along with a really messed up sentence where Nick feels weird about suggesting Brady go to therapy because he's smart and talented. (Excuse me?!) It was such a random and weirdly unfitting thing that I chalked it up to something the editor should have stricken out with a “this is insensitive, unnecessary, and doesn't fit with Nick's established character” note in the margin. Aside from that, the revelation was precious and felt genuine. What little we got about it was handled very well, showing not just the suffering of a person with depression but the deep impact it can have on their loved ones who feel helpless and inadequate when they can't provide a magic fix. I'd have loved to see far more of this than just a small scene at the end of the book.

I'd have also loved to see more of the relationship after that slow-burning flame finally turned into a fire. Unfortunately, they learn to communicate properly off-page at roughly the 99% mark and then suddenly there's an epilogue to breeze through the most wanted part of any slow-burn romance where they exchange 'I love you's and Brady somewhat comes out by openly calling himself Nick's boyfriend.

So, yeah, there's major pacing issues and bits where a good editor could have pumped the brakes on things which don't fit the overall tone. But I still enjoyed this book. I still adored the characters, even with Nick's flaws and Brady's commitment issues. I soaked up every bit of hockey knowledge I could and managed, somehow, to actually follow the action, so I imagine a true hockey fan will revel in those moments. I read page after page after page of will-they-won't-they, actively invested in the path taken toward the obvious answer (I mean, it's literally titled A Beer League Romance, so we know they'll get together eventually.) with nary a complaint other than frustration in their lacking communication skills. I smiled like a giddy schoolgirl when these lunkheads had their precious moments. I made frownyfaces when they had issues. This book made me feel invested in the characters and the story, and that's basically always a win as far as I'm concerned.

I mean, I went into this desperate for fluff and came out of it feeling like 90% fit the criteria and helped me detox from the emotional overload darker stories had given. The world here is much more realistic, the fragile relationship not glossed over, and the drama and angst levels get a bit high at times... but, wow, these guys are adorable together not just as a couple but as friends.

Brady ended up being my favourite character by far. What can I say? I'm drawn to grumpy characters with hearts of gold and characters with mental health issues I can more or less relate to. And there's his backstory that's hinted at and basically a mystery throughout the entire book, finally revealed toward the end. If he hadn't already been my fave, that would've tipped the scale in his favour. I do adore me a tragic character who's doing their best to overcome the damage and be a better person. He also grew and developed as a character far more than Nick over the course of the novel, if I'm being honest. Where Brady learned to communicate, Nick never quite learned to be forgiving and patient. Where Brady came out of his protective shell in bits and pieces over the novel's course, Nick stayed mostly the same until the very end. I normally detest POV jumps in stories, but I almost wonder if perhaps a few chapters from Brady's perspective could have shone more light on the ways Nick had subtly changed.

—

Of interest, the author also writes on AO3. This is no secret; she mentions her pen name in the Goodreads Author biography. Over there, she has a set of “missing scenes” from Hockey Bois that are meant to be the smutty encounters between Brady and Nick which never made it into the book. I was hoping for more of their adorable, shy dynamic - the way they were intimate and sweet together. What I found was nothing like what I wanted, to the point it almost felt wildly out of character at times when things got weirdly kinky (not BDSM level kink but still unexpected).

For someone so closeted after facing homophobic bullying and who says he never had a real relationship before Nick and only ever hooked up with other guys as an experimental thing in the past, it's really fucking weird for Brady to use their first hookup for confident dirty talk and licking jizz from each other's bodies and giving Nick a facial that has nothing to do with soap. Like, sure, it's arguably erotic... but it feels wildly outside the established character.

There's also a gross veer into consent issues which makes literally no sense both for existing and for being labelled as consent issues. It's an adorable scene mentioned in the book where a very tired Nick and a fully-awake Brady hook up and Nick is shown being into it and absolutely consenting. Having the cuteness tarnished by the author note of “dubious consent because nick is just way too exhausted to know what's what rn, but he would 100% be enthusiastically on board if he had enough functioning brainpower to spare” just kinda ticked me off. It's like someone writing “this might have had rat poison near it, but I'm not sure, you can eat it anyway if you want” on a container of delicious-looking cupcakes. You can try one, and you may actually quite enjoy it, but you'll spend the next several hours feeling unsafe, wondering if you're about to bleed to death from consuming rat poison. I could have gone forever without my favourite character in this book having that shadow of doubt cast upon him and a cute moment tainted!

I'd expect these “missing scenes” to be fanfic by a random person, not things written by the actual author! So, y'know, unless you're dying for some weirdly incongruent and wildly differently-toned smut fic of Nick and Brady, I can't say I recommend checking out the extras on AO3. It may even ruin how you look at Brady and make his backstory seem a little suspicious, which I sincerely hope isn't supposed to be the case!

So. Yeah, I'm very glad that the sex was closed-door, faded, only barely alluded to in the book. That style fits the dynamic and the revelation of why Brady's so hot-and-cold far better. In fact, I intend to keep telling myself that those were just weird, fetish fuel fanfics and not something the author herself sees as in character for the adorkable guys I came to care so much about.