Holland has been playing hockey with her brothers and other boys as soon as she could skate. It was only natural for her to try out for the boys hockey team, so when she made it onto the boys varsity team, it felt like it was meant to be. Unfortunately, there are others in her small-town community that don’t feel that way. Some people say Holland took the place of a boy who deserves it. Some say that she thinks she’s too good to play for the girls team. Others say that she’s just going to be a distraction. Holland is determined to prove them all wrong, but when her captain Wes (Hot Sauce) wants to spend more time with her off the ice, Holland finds that sticking to her rules might not be so easy.
TL;DR – Main character has a HUGE chip on her shoulder and that makes the overall story less enjoyable.
I always have a hard time when I feel like characters have too many “things”. I think authors do that to try to create an authentic and well-rounded character, but in reality I think she would just be over-scheduled and wouldn’t have time to be good at any of her things. That was the case for me with Holland. She plays varsity hockey, she’s on the school newspaper, AND she’s super into music and has a blog. I felt like the author just needed to pick two of those three extra-curriculars and focus on those. I think the story still could have been the same, pretty much.
Holland as a character was just okay for me. She was overly defensive about everything. Anytime someone said something remotely misogynistic, she would bite their heads off. For example, if someone were to say, “Good hustle, guys!” she might say, “What? Only guys can hustle? Just because you’re a boy means you’re better at hustling?” Literally. That is a reaction she would have. It was super off-putting. Obviously, I thought it was important to stand up for herself, but…let’s have a little common sense here. I just kept thinking about Jackie Robinson. As the first black player in the Major Leagues, it was important for him to keep his cool and not freak out at people every time they said something negative. I think this is (a small) part of why we remember him in such a positive light today. Holland? Not so much.
Secondary characters were okay. I liked Holland’s brothers but her parents were really non-characters. It seemed like there should have been a point in time where one of her parents (probably her dad) sat her down and just talked to her about hockey and being a girl on the team, etc. I also had an issue with her best friends Cora and Morgan. I liked them as characters, but there was absolutely no backstory as to how they became friends. With Holland spending so much time playing hockey, it didn’t seem like a natural friendship unless they grew up together? But that’s never explained.
As a love interest, Wes was decent. But I didn’t like that he wouldn’t respect Holland’s wishes. Firstly, I thought her reasons for not wanting them to date/their relationship to be public were SUPER valid. But he just kept pushing and pushing. Secondly, even if her reasons weren’t valid, they’re still her wishes! If he really cares for her, he should respect that. Holland had no reason to apologize to him, in my opinion.
My last thing is just a couple of things that didn’t site quite right with me. First, wouldn’t the obvious solution to Holland and Wes’ problem be to just…wait until the season is over to date? Are your hormones that strong that you can’t wait a couple of months? But they never bring up this possibility. It’s either right now or never. Second, Holland is obsessed with Old Donnie’s letter to the editor because he claims she’ll be a distraction. But she completely ignores the fact that he’s essentially saying he wouldn’t care if something happens to her because she’s pretty much asking to be sexually assaulted (with the whole girl in the boy’s locker room thing). Like, what? How is that not the issue for her?
At the end of the day, I thought the premise for this book was pretty solid, but it needed both more and less. That’s not super helpful to say, but I thought it needed more developed relationships with secondary characters and just less…Holland.
Overall Rating: 3
Language: Moderate
Violence: Mild
Smoking/Drinking: Mild
Sexual Content: Moderate
Note: I received a copy of this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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