A review by j_readsbooks
Follow the River by CE Ricci

5.0

This was very dark and emotional. River and Ciarain’s story is absolutely heartbreaking. So many times I was holding my breath, with tears slipping free. River and Rain are beautiful, but this is so emotional and heartbreaking it was sometimes hard to read. I was happy, sad, angry, and so much more. This book is very trigger heavy, with a lot of dark and traumatic moments. Enemies to lovers, college, sports, mm romance with a lot of emotional pain.
River is out and proud, bisexual, the quarterback of his college football team, a popular guy who everyone loves. Rain is new to the team, but also an amazing player. But he has some dark secrets, a traumatic and emotional past. Something he fights to keep hidden from everyone. They immediately hit it off but when Rain learns something about River, it changes their relationship from budding friendship to enemies. But after time, being alone together, they both discover their feelings, that there’s just a fine line between hate and love. And after everything, Rain’s past comes back to haunt him.
This book has a lot of triggers, they aren’t included in the book, rather a general warning about triggers. While I don’t really have triggers and it doesn’t bother me, it should be known going in that there are some very dark and emotionally heavy topics, including SA, child abuse, and suicidal thoughts.