Book Review: Big Win

Some of you might remember this book from when the opening lines annoyed me so much I went off into a tirade about why doing a line edit or paying a line editor is so important. If not, you can read it here. 

As for the book itself. It’s the second in a series about a set of soccer players (footballers) who play sport and find love. I like soccer. I like romance. What could go wrong?

Lots of things. And I need to level with you, I couldn’t make it through this book. It’s that bad. Which is hella disappointing because I’d had Croix’s work recommended to me by someone whose opinion I used to trust.

That trust has been broken.

First off the prose is tired. Stilted. And in horrible need of a line editor not to mention a thorough proofread. It feels like something churned out haphazardly to make money and considering the author’s release schedule – one book a month – this is likely the case.

Secondly. The characters are boring. Uninteresting. Dull.

Alex is supposed to be a footballer from Britain, but he sounds more like how an American thinks a Brit sounds and then forgets that just like America there are regionalisms and vernacular in Britain. Alex was a cliche. Recycled. I’ve read 100 stories with characters exactly like him: pseudo-player attracted to the distant girl who is NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS! (BTW that trope needs to die in a fire right the fuck now, I’m so done with it.) He’s got a DARK PAST™ which makes him be all quiet and brooding.

Yeah, like that.

Harper also has a DARK AND TRAGIC PAST and this is one of many books I’ve read lately where the heroine is also a rape victim. It feels like it’s becoming a trend to have a heroine who has been raped/assaulted but then not deal with the trauma or after effects well. Which is what happened here…

Moving on. Essentially the writing was crap. There’s insta-love and I’m seriously getting sick of that. It’s okay to have insta-attraction or insta-lust but let’s have a little interaction before declaring that you’re the other person’s soulmate. The characters' inner dialogues sounded the same and their banter and flirting fell flat. I didn’t care about them getting together. At all.

I didn’t believe the relationship. A lot of the flirting and dialogues were repetitive. There’s also the annoying cliche of miscommunication/not communicating leading to conflict. The book is supposed to be steamy but like Faleena Hopkins before her one paragraph does not a sex scene make. 

Essentially, I was bored.

And annoyed.

Bored-noyed. Or something like that.

I wanted my time back and the further I read the more annoyed I became. And following my resolution to not force myself to read through books that don’t give me joy.  I stopped reading.

Did Not Finish.

One star.

If this is your jam, you can get it here.

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#bookreview #onestarreview #contemporaryromance #sportsromance #triggerwarnings #jhcroix