A review by ollie_again
From Lukov with Love by Mariana Zapata

2.75

I really wanted to love this book. And I was almost sure I would despite the fact the first book I read by Mariana Zapata wasn’t a hit for me. But I wanted to give her another chance, and ice-skating romance with enemies-to-lovers trope sounds right up my alley. Zapata is known as the queen of slow burn and I truly love slow burn romances, so me not liking her books did not sit right with me. So, I tried again.


And the slow burn itself would be perfect *but* things which bothered me in The Wall of Winnipeg and Me bothered me here. Mainly the bits of internalized misogyny here and there, not like other girl vibes in certain parts, sex scene which put me off, why bother with a condom and some more. 
 
One of the most prominent offenders is the body shaming. In this book it is constant from the beginning until the end. You hear about chubby Jasmine, fat Jasmine, cheat-day-every-day Jasmine, chunky Jasmine, Ivan's heaviest partner etc. And that is from Jasmine herself, *the love interest* Ivan, Jasmine’s family… basically everyone at some point talks shit about Jasmine’s body. Mostly veiled as jokes and if it happened couple of times, I could get over it, but it was all the time. I understand that talking about bodies in context of being professional athletes is realistic, but it was not just that. Example being that Jasmine has small boobs mentioned several times, her family laughing about her not hitting puberty with--at that point a guy who she did not like (and said so to her family)--, and my “favourite” was her start-sex-scene-thought: 

“I’ve never been happier that from the moment Mom had given me permission to shave—right after I’d hit puberty and hair grown in everywhere—that she’d stressed how important it was to do it every day.”

Thanks Jasmine’s mom, because body hair is gross! Right? Even more stupid is Jasmine’s mom has earlier a whole monologue about all bodies being beautiful.
 
Another thing that bothered me is the plot line involving stalking. Sexual harassment over internet which never gets resolved.
Ivan finds out, gets protective and pissed off at Jasmine about it for some reason too... aaaand it isn’t talked about again. Why include it at all if there is no proper follow up?
Why include it at all if you do not give it proper attention.

And my last point is about the aforementioned sex scene. I would be perfectly content to there not be one, but there is. The line:

“I’d never tell Ivan, but it hurts. At first.”

Like… why? Why would you not mention a discomfort to your sexual partner? It such a minor thing but it took me out of the scene completely. It could be written in million other ways without mentioning of *not-mentioning* it.

To not just pick on the negatives, the book is very readable. Some scenes were pretty cute, and I really liked the ice-skating parts of it. Even though I was annoyed with every character at some point, I think they all made sense and were not flat. I enjoyed that Jasmine’s relationship with her family was complex and not as easy.

It is annoying that I could not enjoy the book more, and I probably would love it if I read it when I was 16. But back then I was not aware of misogynistic language (and more problems) in certain romance novels (I am sure if I reread some of the books I read back then, I would be horrified). I would probably eat everything in this book up, thought it is reasonable to shit on yourself over small boobs etc. Unfortunately, I read the book at 26 and this stuff grates on me. 

After giving two chances and a half (DNFd Under Locke pretty much 20p in) and reading article about the transphobic language Zapata employs in her other book, I can safely say I won’t be rushing to pick another book by her. Never say never, but at this point I’d say Zapata is not for me.
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