A review by chekwube
Icebreaker by Hannah Grace

emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

This book was a great read. I loved being a part of the Titan world and it was very obvious Hannah Grace wanted readers to be immersed into the college ecosystem bubble that was University of California Maple Hills. I think that was also another point that had me feeling a bit iffy and that’s just because sometimes names were dropped (especially at the beginning) and it almost felt like you had to remember the names in case they had relevance in the story. But I guess that’s the thing with college and hence a book about college. There are so many people, so many names, so much happening constantly. It was nostalgic being in college and it felt very real considering all the drama that typically happens in college settings.
In that same vein, I will say that I did wish some of the excess information had been cut out. Grace explained literally every single mannerism and gave context for every single situation in a way that was unlike typical books and kind of always took me out of the story’s sequence. Obviously it was nice to know this background but a lot of times it did feel almost tooo explanatory. I think she could have done better to seamlessly weave the background story into the current storyline. 
The love story, on the other hand, was definitely pleasant. However, Anastasia (the main girl) was just really mean while Nate was always so patient with her. As Hannah explicitly stated in the book, Nate was a male character written for a woman and honestly, her saying that kept me safely in between “aww” and full-on delusional. So I’m actually thankful for that. The relationship she had with his friends was also just amazing and to be honest, per real life scenarios, I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop either with Nate himself or with his friends. It was just not realistic and I don’t know, maybe this is a me thing but I usually try to visualize books realistically to make a connection with them. And seeing as the book was so clearly supposed to be a college read, I tried really hard to visualize a lot of those situations as realistic but I just couldn’t. Maybe I just don’t have enough faith in men. Also, I loved the way we were able to deduce the diversity (though it was little) in the characters of the book. It wasn’t like heavily emphasized but you could notice it. For instance with JJ being Indian and gay and making comments about the group’s whiteness. I also thought it was really cute how Hannah Grace touched on body dysmorphia and eating habits and brought in JJ who taught Anastasia how to make Indian delicacies, that was cute. The book definitely needed more diversity though. It was giving PWI. 
Besides all that, I enjoyed this book as a romance novel. Definitely a spicy spicy one too. Didn’t expect that from a book with such a cute cover but I knew what I was getting into thanks to TikTok reviews.
Overall good book!
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