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Confession: when I started this book, I hated it. I almost DNFed like four times. Why? Because Stassie was a stone cold bitch for the first 50% and I couldn’t stand her pretty guts! But then, when Stassie and Nate developed more and came into their feelings, I grew to love her. She’s a dedicated pairs skater and Nate is a hockey player full of green flags, overflowing with them! She’s crotchety and uptight and he’s laid back and kind. So when they finally come together as a “not a couple�� they complement each other well. They’re forced to share a rink for practice, and when her awful partner is hurt and blames Nate, he’s forced to be her practice partner.

All the while, they’re falling in love and dodging her partner Aaron’s attempts to manipulate Stassie’s life, including her self image and relationship with food. Nate helps her through that in the most loving way, and Stassie uses her extensive time in therapy to help Nate grow as a person and to try and understand her without worrying about fixing things all the time. Add in a lovable crew of hockey guys and the best friend ever in Lola, and this became an enjoyable read. No third act breakup, just some incredibly self-aware people and a whole lot of love. It’s rare that I do a 180 and go from hating a character to loving her (it’s usually the FMC that kills a book for me, hate an unlikable girl) and I really appreciate the therapy in this book.

Having said all of that, while I’m super impressed that it’s this author’s debut novel, there were about 150 pages too many. It was waaaayyyyy too long, to the point that even though I was enjoying the second half of this book immensely, it was a weird kind of torture to finish it. I even found myself wanting to DNF at the 70% and 85% marks, though I’m glad I finished. The ending was everything, but if I’m going to read anything else by this author, I’m checking the page count first! It’s okay if a book is long, but if there is so much unnecessary stuff in there, like the side story about Summer, then it’s not worth the page count in my opinion.