Icebreaker

If you took an Ali Hazelwood book and replaced STEM with sports, and communicative and professional twists and turns with violence and physical peril you'd probably get something like this. The typical romance novel three act structure ends around midway and the rest is notably less fun, often feeling like merely a vehicle to get us to the next sex scene which really started to drag imo. Pretty mid, I feel it could have done with a good editor.

When the hockey team's rink is trashed and they have to share the ice-skaters' rink for practice, Stassie is not happy, and the team's captain, Nate, becomes the target of her ire.  Their mutual attraction, which she is unwilling to admit to, does not make things easier. And the cherry on the top is when her skating partner is injured and he blames Nate for his accident.
I am glad I read Wildfire first because if I had started with this one it would have been over for this series. I thought the story was missing one more step to being more dramatic and meaningful. For example, Aaron put Stassie on a horribly strict diet that wasn't enough for her active lifestyle, but beyond it causing some quarreling between her and Nate, then confronting Aaron about, nothing happened. Or when Stassie fell into the frozen lake, there was a brief part in the hospital, and most of my friends who read the book forgot about it a week after they were done. Or later when Nate's dad comes back early during Christmas break. His conversation with Nate was very mellow. I didn't feel that Nate got closure out of it. I liked that the book included interactions with secondary characters. It made me invested in seeing them in future books. Henry was my favorite, with his blunt and unfiltered thoughts. As an antagonist, Aaron was quite bland. Nothing he ever did meant anything in the long run, and it doesn't sound like he suffered any repercussions for his actions.

this reminded me of the off campus series. especially garret and hannah. i feel like nathan was based on garret's character big time. maybe it was just hockey but thats what i felt.

other than that, the book was easy to read and fun to go through. i liked the relationship progress between nathan and anastasia. i hated aaron from the very first page he was introduced. the communication between the characters was strong. I was super glad for no cheating trope because that would have been a big turn off for me. the smut was great too.

however, i do have some complains

in the start, sabrina says “ya Allah” with no context as to where she is from and that confused me for a minute. her name didnt hint at anything either because sabrina is a white name i suppose. after three paragraphs was she introduced to us. i feel like adding “ya Allah” only once in the entire book is useless because as a muslim myself, i have been taught to respect my God's name and not write it down on piece of paper which i might throw out or casually leave on the floor. with that being said, i felt slightly uneasy knowing this book had endless smut, but also that people who are not muslims and arent given the same teachings as me would not respect it the same way. maybe the author could have used “ya rabbi” instead which still means oh my god same as ya Allah

TITLE Icebreaker
AUTHOR Hannah Grace
Genre Romance
Subgenre -
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Emotional Impact 7.5
Characters 7
Plot 6.5
Worldbuilding 6.25
Dialogue / Prose 6.75
Official Rating 6.84
Goodreads Rating 3.5 Stars
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Date Started 6/8/2024
Date Finished 6/10/2024
NOTES Can't believe I read spicy romance books now - they are so much easier to read and serve as a nice breather in between larger series. Icebreaker was popcorn reading at it's finest, really enjoyed the relationship of the MCs and it went by super fast. ty tiktok

How can a book be so steamy and so boring at the same time? It's honestly impressive. It should've been half as long or the author shouldn't have made them get together so soon. If the characters get together before we're halfway through the book, you better give me a good ass plot to keep me entertained.

I liked these Stassie and Nate. They're nice. I like their relationship. The spicy scenes are good. But the plot of this book is so paper thin and felt so inconsequential that I honestly fell asleep a few times reading the latter part of the book. I'm also sick an tired of bad enemies to lovers plots.

It does have redeeming qualities. There are fun elements to the book. I didn't hate it, but the hype is unwarranted.

¿Lo mejor del libro? Cuando se termina.
Sinceramente iba con ganas para leerlo pero me ha decepcionado muchísimo. Buena premisa, mala ejecución. Ninguno de los personajes me caía bien (sobre todo la protagonista). Y se me ha hecho demasiado largo y aburrido. Con 200 páginas menos quizás hubiese sido mejor.

This had to be my first review—

Honestly, I don't know dow I didn't dnf this book—it was so bad. Literally spent four months trying to read it. Gave me the biggest reader's blocks multiple times. The characters were okay, I guess. I really wanted to like this book more, but it was unbearably boring. There was no plot, just sex, and expected cliches. I feel like this was a cheap copy of From Lukov With Love, even the endings were similar.

God, the characters in Icebreaker were so cringe and it felt so forced. I really wanted to love this book, but I couldn't.

I read this as an audiobook, which might have contributed to my discomfort with the writing. It's one thing to read cringey immature characters in your head and another thing to have some voice actor whining in your ear. 

Sorry, that sounds harsh. I didn't hate this book. It's just too romance and no other plot for me. I also really struggled with the white boy hockey player names in the beginning. There were just so many of them and none of them stood out besides Nate himself. 

Might give it a try again as an e-book, but not motivated to do so anytime soon.

I really enjoyed this book. It's so sweet and a perfect example of what a man written by a woman looks like. I found it hilarious that Hannah Grace said the same thing in reference to her own characters. Nate's whole heart belongs to Anastasia, and hers to him. I'm really glad Aaron got punished for being disgusting. I initially thought he hurt himself to punish Anastasia or something so she couldn't compete, but he's too vain for that. This story is just full of sweet, warm, friendship vibes and it's a very enjoyable read.

I thought everything was pretty realistic with Anastasia's struggles and the psychology that went behind each character's motives. I loved how the characters weren't perfect but acknowledged their flaws and tried to adjust themselves to the best of their ability (except Aaron but that's not surprising because Aaron sucks).

I was so scared of a pregnancy trope and I'm go glad that didn't happen!

I was in the mood for something light and heartwarming and this was just perfect.
Often romances follow the same tropes and read pretty much the same.. we have miscommunication, third act breakups and what annoys me the most, lack of condom use.

Icebreaker felt refreshing in the sense it represent a healthy relationship, backed up by strong and healthy communication.
Both MC were strong, supported each other and became better together.

I would recommend this book to young readers as I think it perfectly teaches about consent, healthy relationships and safe sex. It also shows the positive impact of therapy and the importance of surrounding yourself with people you trust.

This is a romance novel that I would say is best summed up as doing perfectly what it says on the tin. Personally for me, neither the characters nor their trials and tribulations were particularly compelling to me. That being said I recognize that is my personal preferences and expectations of romance. I am no stranger to the average genre romance story, and this one with plenty of sex and a competitive sports college setting, is definitely in the realm of a rather traditional romance story arc. Which made it overall predictable and not in a way I found terribly compelling.

I think the messages of the story are good ones, the relationship is sweet and built up in a way that I think reflects a good and healthy relationship even with smatterings of enemies to lovers. But about a third of the way in I had to force myself into finishing the work, not because it was awful or anything but because I was just not invested. The work was a little over hyped online in my opinion, and I think that led to warped expectations. By the end of the story I was compelled by the developing plot beats but I wish it hadn't taken so long for me to feel that way.

Overall Icebreaker is a cute frenemies to lovers story doing exactly what it set out to do perfectly, it simply wasn't for me. I won't, however, be surprised to see this made into a film in about 5 years.

2.0 o 2.5 estrellas

Al inicio yo creí que estaba no iba a ser al menos un tres estrellas pero no primero Anastasia te lo más cansado en el inicio del libro está pelada le falta Yo creo que le metan un palazo para que deje de ser tan porquería y aunque pues no entiende porque ella es así porque ella tiene su personalidad tan marcada tan come m***** se entiende uno logra empatizar con ella a medida que uno avanza aunque la verdad al final del libro casi sí da ganas de volverle a meter una patada necesitan es hermoso Nathan es un rayito de su la verdad muy dulce y al final pues estuvo entretenido sí me entretuvo durante mucho rato pero a medida que avanza también se vuelve aburrida se volvió tediosa yo creo que le sobraban 200 páginas del libro o al menos unas 100 sí lo hubiera ayudado.
No recomendaría este libro si alguien quiere salir de un bloqueo lector porque si está larguito y al final es un poco tedioso para alguien que quiere salir de un bloqueo pero creo que si alguien se quiere entretener leer uno relajante un momento este es el libro perfecto pero personalmente pues la verdad se me hizo un poco mella al final yo juraba que iba a ser un libro de tres estrellas pero pues no lo fue ese final fue lo que lo mató para mí.