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A review by liroa15
Pucked by Helena Hunting
2.0
For me, two stars seems somewhat generous, but since there were moments that made me laugh, I'm loathe to give it the single star it probably deserves. This book is clearly trying to be a humorous romance, at which is mostly fails abysmally. When not wading through literal mountains of misogyny, most especially from other female characters (if I never have to read the term 'hockey hooker' again, it will be too fucking soon to be quite honest), this book failed to present literally anything realistically. The male lead basically stalks the female lead, including locking them in a meeting room at her work, to get her to go out with him in the first place, and after they break up due to his own stupidity, he goes right back to the same behaviour and no one in the novel calls him on how gross and fucking creepy it is. And don't even get me started on the fact that no NHL player, especially not a captain, would be as unprofessional as to get caught having sex with his girlfriend during fucking intermission in a locker room, nor would said girlfriend ever just be allowed to slip by security.
The humour in this novel never rose above an excessively juvenile level, since it seemed to consist entirely of either dick jokes or jokes about sex. I understand that this appeals to some people, but it was honestly way over the top in this book to the point of idiocy.
And then when it comes to the hockey, the author got pretty much every fucking thing wrong. I know she was attempting to portray a relative neophyte to the sport, but even a relative neophyte would know that it's called a penalty box and not a "time-out box," most especially if her stepbrother played in the goddamn NHL. Furthermore, it's unbelievable to me that the author would continually write a supposedly well-respected scout sitting against the glass when the views in those seats are majorly obstructed and they wouldn't be able to see half the game because of sight lines. (I explained away the fact that there was still a team in Atlanta in this by pretending it was 2010, something the Cup final in this novel seemed to want me to do.) And the amount of attention the author seemed to think the general press would invest in this was absurd and more worthy of a Hollywood movie star than a hockey star.
Overall, this struck me as nothing more than smut and juvenile humour, both of which have a time and a place, but taken to excess. The author clearly wanted to use hockey as the backdrop for this story without actually referencing anything to do with hockey except for a few team names. Very disappointing read.
The humour in this novel never rose above an excessively juvenile level, since it seemed to consist entirely of either dick jokes or jokes about sex. I understand that this appeals to some people, but it was honestly way over the top in this book to the point of idiocy.
And then when it comes to the hockey, the author got pretty much every fucking thing wrong. I know she was attempting to portray a relative neophyte to the sport, but even a relative neophyte would know that it's called a penalty box and not a "time-out box," most especially if her stepbrother played in the goddamn NHL. Furthermore, it's unbelievable to me that the author would continually write a supposedly well-respected scout sitting against the glass when the views in those seats are majorly obstructed and they wouldn't be able to see half the game because of sight lines. (I explained away the fact that there was still a team in Atlanta in this by pretending it was 2010, something the Cup final in this novel seemed to want me to do.) And the amount of attention the author seemed to think the general press would invest in this was absurd and more worthy of a Hollywood movie star than a hockey star.
Overall, this struck me as nothing more than smut and juvenile humour, both of which have a time and a place, but taken to excess. The author clearly wanted to use hockey as the backdrop for this story without actually referencing anything to do with hockey except for a few team names. Very disappointing read.