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A review by indiekay
Playing Offside by Jax Calder
3.0
This is a pretty straight forward closeted gay sports romance book - if that's a genre you like this is a book worth reading, as it definitely fits on the "comfortable romance reads" shelf. The only thing that really differentiated this book from other sport romances I've read is that it's set in New Zealand (though it doesn't really make a big difference - you could have ctrl f'd all the mentions of New Zealand and replaced it with any other country that plays rugby and I think the book would have still been exactly the same).
I was also intrigued by the family dynamics of both characters, which held the promise of a lot of angst, but unfortunately both situations were resolved in ways that the characters had no agency with, and thus felt a bit lacklustre to me (
And with Tyler's family, his father saw him kissing another boy as a teenager and his father beats him for it, then says he cannot tell his mother as it would kill her. Then every time the father sees Tyler he threatens him about not going public about being gay. This plot point gets resolved with a wet fizzle as his mother finds out after seeing Aidan at Tyler's bedside in the hospital, and immediately goes to tell Tyler she loves him and he's perfect - which BTW ends up happening off-page. And she also apparently talks to Tyler's father off-page too, and he half-assedly apologises to Tyler. Like, woof. That was such a flop of a resolution to me.)
To be honest, I had been tempted to DNF this a few times because I found the 20-50% mark of this book pretty boring - that part is very heavy on the sex scenes, and having read two Jax Calder books now, I can safely say sex scenes are not one of this author's strong points. The sex scenes are very dull - not very descriptive, repetitive, and over incredibly quickly, and then followed by a character saying "wow that was the best sex of my life!"
That all said, I did think the second half of this book was really strong. I liked how Zach, Aidan's best friend, figured out that he was dating Tyler, and I liked how the issues the couple faced were resolved.
This book also had quite a few hints at the couple that are the stars of the next book in this series, and I am intrigued enough by that concept that I will be adding that book to my TBR.
I was also intrigued by the family dynamics of both characters, which held the promise of a lot of angst, but unfortunately both situations were resolved in ways that the characters had no agency with, and thus felt a bit lacklustre to me (
Spoiler
Aidan's mother had been in a depressive state since his father died when he was 11, and he even has the thought at some point that he bets she wished Aidan had been the one to die instead of his father. I'd been hoping Aidan would have a conversation with his mother and share these feelings with her, and have them address his survivor's guilt and her promising to try to go to therapy or to something, but instead this plot point is resolved with Aidan's mother saying she got asked out on a date, and it seems like that cured her depression. No discussions had, the end.And with Tyler's family, his father saw him kissing another boy as a teenager and his father beats him for it, then says he cannot tell his mother as it would kill her. Then every time the father sees Tyler he threatens him about not going public about being gay. This plot point gets resolved with a wet fizzle as his mother finds out after seeing Aidan at Tyler's bedside in the hospital, and immediately goes to tell Tyler she loves him and he's perfect - which BTW ends up happening off-page. And she also apparently talks to Tyler's father off-page too, and he half-assedly apologises to Tyler. Like, woof. That was such a flop of a resolution to me.)
To be honest, I had been tempted to DNF this a few times because I found the 20-50% mark of this book pretty boring - that part is very heavy on the sex scenes, and having read two Jax Calder books now, I can safely say sex scenes are not one of this author's strong points. The sex scenes are very dull - not very descriptive, repetitive, and over incredibly quickly, and then followed by a character saying "wow that was the best sex of my life!"
That all said, I did think the second half of this book was really strong. I liked how Zach, Aidan's best friend, figured out that he was dating Tyler, and I liked how the issues the couple faced were resolved.
This book also had quite a few hints at the couple that are the stars of the next book in this series, and I am intrigued enough by that concept that I will be adding that book to my TBR.