Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Puck Me Secretly

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Puck Me Secretly by Odette Stone

67 reviews

jinnywithaj's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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thiaroberts's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book was wild and there was a lot going on. It opens with a plane crash that is just….never mentioned again. Which is a choice. The hero did grow a lot and I did enjoy the book. But there were just so many threads. The author did a pretty good job of bringing them all together in the end. Except the plane crash. It bugs me that it was just dropped like it never happened

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leaazarnasr's review against another edition

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emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Too much going on at the end, it was very confusing

Spoilers of the thing I thought weren’t necessary:
- plane crash
- all the sa cases
- the extreme hate on the MMC
- the MMC getting accused of r*pe
- the MMC getting arrested
- the halfassed break up
- the MMC disappearing
- the head coach and the head media girl’s drama
- the coach abusing his wife
- the coach « kidnapping » the FMC on her own home
- FMC having a gun to her head

Most of what happened was about 50-70 pages near the end. It was very condensed

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cahdii's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Story ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5
Performance ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5
Overall ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5 4.5/5
Spice 🌶️🌶️.5 2.5/5

Do not be deceived by this cover or the title. It’s not a rom-comy, spicy hockey romance. The romance, drama and plot twists had me, quiet screaming, jumping up and down, talking out loud to the characters, not caring that I looked like a crazy person. Check the trigger warnings, though.

This is a one-night stand to secret relationship, spicy workplace hockey romance that addresses some heavy topics like sexual abuse and resulting pregnancy, and domestic violence, (not between the couple).

Disclaimer: most of the time, I read to escape reality so my enjoyment of a story is not based on its real-world likeness. I’ve seen some other reviews and if that’s something that’s important to you, you may not like this book.

So Rory and Max are 2 strangers on a plane that survive the plane crashing and the shared experience creates a bond between them. Fast forward to a few days later, Rory has started a new job as second-in-command to the General Manager of an NHL team, who also happens to be her father. It turns out Max is the new star player on her team, who has joined under a cloud of scandal. So it’s obviously in both their best interest (especially his) to keep hidden his brief history with Rory, and leave the past in the past. But that proves to be a lot easier said than done.

Personally, I could tell fairly early on that there’s more to this story than the synopsis and cover imply. There are clearly a lot of secrets swimming around, especially surrounding Max’s past. There’s a lot of friction between Max and his head coach. There’s also friction between Rory and the head coach because no one like nepotism. The GM seems to like and dislike max at the same time. I could see that trouble was brewing. But I was not expecting the level of the drama and chaos that ensued. Some plot twists were predictable, but the execution made it exciting. While I consider this an easy read, the writer get’s you invested in the characters, so be prepared to get emotional over their struggles.

I love how other elements of the story feature strongly. A lot of the time, in romance books, there’ll be a subplot that’s only there to prop up the main romance plot, but I feel like if you took the romance out of this book, it could still be a really good story. I like how all the side characters had their storylines tied up nicely at the end, the writer didn’t just drop them after the main couple got their happily ever after. I particularly like the character development of one the side characters, who goes from being a nuisance Rory is forced to tolerate, to an actual friend. I gave the story 4 stars, because i think the ending was a bit underdeveloped. the conflict got resolved a little too easily.

This isn’t a super spicy book. There’s a lot of sexual tension and steamy scenes, but most of them fade to black. There are 3 explicit scenes in this book, with different levels of description.

And I have to talk about the narration. This book is written in first person single POV. Madeleine Dauer does an amazing job of acting out so many male voices. It was clear who was talking, when, and the different voices suited the different characters. Her performance was top notch.

This is book one of four in the Vancouver Wolves Hockey series and the first 3 are included in the Audible Plus Catalogue. This is a good book for you if you like slow-burn romance, a dirty talking MMC, spice, humour and angst, with some heavier themes thrown in.

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lollikpop's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Overall an enjoyable story. The main characters were fairly likeable however almost every other character in this book was frustrating, annoying, or detestable (some it feels like were written to be that way and others not intentionally so).

Relied a bit too much on sex to fill pages. The beginning was interesting however it was surprising to me just how quickly the fear of flying disappeared as the FMC then spent the whole rest of the book flying all over the continent.

The ending felt like every plot trope involving a villain confrontation was forced in, and so felt very unbelievable, and the motivations of the villain while explained did not seem to really make sense. The whole confrontation was very confusing to me, and I feel was a disappointing end to a great opening and premise.

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