Icebreaker by Hannah Grace

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Spice: 🌶️🌶️

Anastasia has worked hard all her life to achieve her dream of being a figure skater and she’s so close to getting there, competing for a coveted spot on Team USA while attending college. When vandalism forces her to share a rink with the hockey team, she’s thrown for a loop. You see, she’s used to having everything planned out, all of the time. Now, with her schedule off the chart, and her partner injured, she has no choice but to practice with Nathan, the captain of the hockey team.

Why do we love jealous men who really care about their woman? I don’t know, but we just do and so we love Nate.

This book has been heavily featured on BookTok and so of course you’ll see this book, and the next two in the series, up front and center at your local Target. But being a viral book comes with a lot of risk because when something is this hyped, the expectations are that much higher.

Tropes/What to Expect:

• Friends to lovers

• Jealous men

• He falls first

• Forced proximity

• Dual POV

After having read this book and the next one, I’m sad to say this has been overhyped. I liked it a little bit, but I think my interested was mostly carried by the smut. I’d recommend it more if it didn’t feel unnecessarily long at times and wasn’t leaning so much into “instalove”.

Criticisms

To be fair, I listened to the first few chapters of this book using assistive reading, but throughout the beginning, I had an extremely hard time knowing who was who. There are so many characters and they switch back and forth between going by first names, last names or even nicknames. The pacing was a little unusual. I felt like I was far into the story but not far in the book itself, but maybe that’s because they move so quickly from “enemies” to being super into each other. Basically, there isn’t enough tension or build up. It just doesn’t make sense for them to go from “I can’t commit” and “I’m in love with this other girl” to committing and loving the main character.

Likes

Some of the side characters, like Henry, were my favorites! He was honest, protective, blunt, and felt like someone I’d want by my side. I liked him enough that I’d read the 3rd book in this series after hating book #2. This story also did not have the overplayed, 3rd act breakup. HALLELUJAH.

There was a nice representation of different types of people, like JJ, Henry, or even Anastasia since she was adopted.

If you like sports themed romances, have ever wished to have a tall, muscular hockey player be obsessed with you, and like spice, you’ll probably enjoy reading this!