A review by thebookishmama
Binding 13 by Chloe Walsh

funny hopeful reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

The absolute chokehold this book had on me. I am not a slowburn, long romance girlie but this book consumed me entirely. I was immediately hooked on both the main characters and I’m so thankful we got both of their POVs. This is a fairly slow paced book, lots of day to day shenanigans of two teenaged Irish kids. I can’t exactly place why I loved this so much but I really did. I won’t lie, Gibsie was for sure my favorite part and I’m dying for his book. Johnny and Shannon are so sweet and complex but also so naive and a bit frustrating, which really brought me back to my teenage years. There was some of the classic bits you would assume with the characters being who they are and with these tropes, but they also felt so different than any of the other romance books I’ve read set in high school. It’s a bit repetitive, a bit too much in certain situations, that kept me from really loving it. I think had some of the repetitive bits been slimmed down this could have been more like a 450 page book instead of 600. Regardless, I ate it up and I cannot wait to start the next book so I can get more of S & J!

I want to emphasize SO SO strongly that this book is NOT a young adult book. I’m actually so shocked that this is labeled a YA book. It’s not smutty, but my goodness there are some heavy topics going on that I don’t think a YA audience should be reading about. I’ll include triggers/content warnings below if you don’t want to go in blind. 

Tropes/themes
-young love
-sports romance (rugby)
-slow burn 
-shy girl/jock boy 




**triggers/content warning**
Child abuse, miscarriage, mention of child SA, spousal abuse, neglect
Expand filter menu Content Warnings