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A review by romantasyandtea
The Long Game by Rachel Reid
3.0
3.75 stars.
Spoilers ahead.
AHHHH I feel like such a downer giving such a highly rated book 3.75 stars. I've been flipflopping between that and 4 stars, but honestly, at the end of it all, I just could not look past Shane's behavior for more than the entire first half of the book, no matter how wonderful the ending was.
I'll start with that, in fact, as it was only one of three things that bothered me, and then I'll end on the good notes:
- My biggest gripe was Shane. Don't get me wrong, I loved him. I loved how sweet he was, I loved how competitive he was, I loved how funny he was, and I loved loved LOVED his love for Ilya because Ilya is my darling and deserves all the love. That said, his selfishness and self-centeredness veered a little too close to unlikable at times, with very little to no payoff. I mean, his boyfriend tells him he's seeing a therapist, and his idea of a comforting response is, "Well, she's sworn to secrecy, so she can't tell anyone about our relationship, so it's fine." Like ???
Ilya's plane almost crashes, he writes Shane his last words, and afterwards when Ilya wants to FaceTime him, Shane can't because one of his teammates might notice! They've all got headphones in, but what if someone saw the emotion on Shane's face?? What if someone dared find out that he cared about Ilya?? It was too much, honestly.
The worst of it, I think, was the very cruel words Shane threw in Ilya's face about his team losing all the time, and then following it up with one freaking apology, and everything is fine and he's forgiven and Ilya's making more jokes at his own expense even when we all SEE how depressed he is. All so Shane doesn't feel bad. It just felt like there was no proper self-reflection on Shane's part. They get engaged because Shane finally wants to, they plan to get married because Shane wants to. He finds out his boyfriend has been seeing a therapist for MONTHS without telling him, and he's only hurt that Ilya doesn't talk to him, but doesn't take a second to wonder WHY. And then that phone call with his mother just really didn't sit right with me. The way she scoffed her way through his concerns because he could treat Ilya however poorly he wanted, and Ilya would never mind. It just felt icky and cruel, to be honest.
- This book was about 200 pages longer than it needed to be. Listen, I usually love smut scenes - the smuttier, the better - but it was very hard to enjoy any of those moments when two seconds before they're sleeping together, Ilya is talking about some very dark thoughts and feeling so visibly alone, and Shane is concerned first and foremost with his own career. It got to a point where every time they started to get hot and heavy, I would just sigh and wait for it to be over so that they could TALK already, and they never did!
- I couldn't stand J.J. at the end there, and I personally loathe that reaction in stories. Your best friend just got publicly outed, and you're thinking about how betrayed you feel because he wouldn't tell you who he'd been dating? The jerk never even apologized! I... ugghhhhh I did not want to see him at the wedding.
That's it. I make the problems sound much worse than they were. I hesitate to bring any of them up because in truth, what I loved was:
- The rest of the book. Ilya was too precious for words, the whole thing is SO freaking well-written, Ilya was so funny, the friendships were so sweet (real friendships, J.J., thank you and get out), I loved seeing Ottawa finally get the recognition and love they deserve, the kids were actually so funny too, Ilya was so cute and funny with Anya, Ilya and Hayden's banter was hilarious, and Ilya Ilya Ilya. He's too charming for words, I can't believe how quickly I fell in love with this character, I would fight and die for this man, he's so wonderful.
I genuinely had a great time with this book, but I think it's just a little harder to comfortably give it 4 stars after watching Ilya suffer the way he did for so much of the story with no proper payoff on Shane's part. Oh, there were the grand, romantic gestures, sure, but there was never a moment when Shane reflected on how blind he'd willingly been to Ilya's pain. Everything eventually works out because Shane decides it, so... I guess it's a good thing Ilya just sucked it up long enough for his boyfriend to care more about him than hockey? Ultimately, I loved them both, I really did, I loved this relationship, I had a lot of fun with this story (when I wasn't crying my eyes out at the impressively accurate depiction, in my opinion, of depression), and I will happily read more of Rachel Reid's work.
Spoilers ahead.
AHHHH I feel like such a downer giving such a highly rated book 3.75 stars. I've been flipflopping between that and 4 stars, but honestly, at the end of it all, I just could not look past Shane's behavior for more than the entire first half of the book, no matter how wonderful the ending was.
I'll start with that, in fact, as it was only one of three things that bothered me, and then I'll end on the good notes:
- My biggest gripe was Shane. Don't get me wrong, I loved him. I loved how sweet he was, I loved how competitive he was, I loved how funny he was, and I loved loved LOVED his love for Ilya because Ilya is my darling and deserves all the love. That said, his selfishness and self-centeredness veered a little too close to unlikable at times, with very little to no payoff. I mean, his boyfriend tells him he's seeing a therapist, and his idea of a comforting response is, "Well, she's sworn to secrecy, so she can't tell anyone about our relationship, so it's fine." Like ???
Ilya's plane almost crashes, he writes Shane his last words, and afterwards when Ilya wants to FaceTime him, Shane can't because one of his teammates might notice! They've all got headphones in, but what if someone saw the emotion on Shane's face?? What if someone dared find out that he cared about Ilya?? It was too much, honestly.
The worst of it, I think, was the very cruel words Shane threw in Ilya's face about his team losing all the time, and then following it up with one freaking apology, and everything is fine and he's forgiven and Ilya's making more jokes at his own expense even when we all SEE how depressed he is. All so Shane doesn't feel bad. It just felt like there was no proper self-reflection on Shane's part. They get engaged because Shane finally wants to, they plan to get married because Shane wants to. He finds out his boyfriend has been seeing a therapist for MONTHS without telling him, and he's only hurt that Ilya doesn't talk to him, but doesn't take a second to wonder WHY. And then that phone call with his mother just really didn't sit right with me. The way she scoffed her way through his concerns because he could treat Ilya however poorly he wanted, and Ilya would never mind. It just felt icky and cruel, to be honest.
- This book was about 200 pages longer than it needed to be. Listen, I usually love smut scenes - the smuttier, the better - but it was very hard to enjoy any of those moments when two seconds before they're sleeping together, Ilya is talking about some very dark thoughts and feeling so visibly alone, and Shane is concerned first and foremost with his own career. It got to a point where every time they started to get hot and heavy, I would just sigh and wait for it to be over so that they could TALK already, and they never did!
- I couldn't stand J.J. at the end there, and I personally loathe that reaction in stories. Your best friend just got publicly outed, and you're thinking about how betrayed you feel because he wouldn't tell you who he'd been dating? The jerk never even apologized! I... ugghhhhh I did not want to see him at the wedding.
That's it. I make the problems sound much worse than they were. I hesitate to bring any of them up because in truth, what I loved was:
- The rest of the book. Ilya was too precious for words, the whole thing is SO freaking well-written, Ilya was so funny, the friendships were so sweet (real friendships, J.J., thank you and get out), I loved seeing Ottawa finally get the recognition and love they deserve, the kids were actually so funny too, Ilya was so cute and funny with Anya, Ilya and Hayden's banter was hilarious, and Ilya Ilya Ilya. He's too charming for words, I can't believe how quickly I fell in love with this character, I would fight and die for this man, he's so wonderful.
I genuinely had a great time with this book, but I think it's just a little harder to comfortably give it 4 stars after watching Ilya suffer the way he did for so much of the story with no proper payoff on Shane's part. Oh, there were the grand, romantic gestures, sure, but there was never a moment when Shane reflected on how blind he'd willingly been to Ilya's pain. Everything eventually works out because Shane decides it, so... I guess it's a good thing Ilya just sucked it up long enough for his boyfriend to care more about him than hockey? Ultimately, I loved them both, I really did, I loved this relationship, I had a lot of fun with this story (when I wasn't crying my eyes out at the impressively accurate depiction, in my opinion, of depression), and I will happily read more of Rachel Reid's work.