Iced Out (Leighton U, #1) Review
I thought long and hard about this review. When it all came down the wire, I didn’t get as much as I had hoped from the book. So, that’s where we’re starting. Iced Out is a sports MM romance with Quinton and Oakley. Both enemies on the same hockey team in college. A potentially great story from that one sentence. Lost games led to more animosity to bantering between the two. At the beginning of the road, we, the readers, were introduced to what banter could lead to. One guy on his knees in a bathroom to prove a point to his enemy. A point well proven. Which led to winning a game and a superstition was born. Again, a possibly wonderful story. Was it, though?
First of all, I didn’t like Oakley. The first few chapters of the incident with the test thing pissed me off. He did nothing and yet had the heart to judge others. Nowhere along the line did the author give me any reason to like him. Then there was the disaster, and it went by in a flash. I was not satisfied with the outcome. What was his real-time reprimand for what he did? Sure, he didn’t do the act, but he was aware of it. And then the whole part where he confessed about what the guy did, and I was like ‘did Oakley do it because he knew it was wrong? Or did he do it because Quinton was upset?’ I got the former out of the situation and it rubbed me the wrong way.
Seriously, cutting a friend off because your f-buddy was pissed at you wasn’t the right way to go. Yes, he did something wrong, but at the time, the guy thought he was doing something good. People make mistakes like this in real life. We do dumb things because we think we are helping our friends or family. There was a different way to solve the problem. Instead of Oakley pinning all the blame on his friend, they could have had a civilized conversation. One that included pointing out to the friend that he was grateful---because that a-hole was, even if it was at the beginning---but there are other ways to solve a problem. One that didn’t include destroying someone’s life. What I got was an argument and ‘we can’t be friends anymore’. What the actual F? So, are you going to cut off everyone that makes dumb decisions now? Come on, do better. If the author had addressed this matter in the right way instead of rushing through it, more readers like me could have learned some things along with the characters. Was that too hard to ask for?
Then it was the seme and uke issue. I need to stop doing this to myself. I go into a MM Romance, analyzing the characters and picturing their positions in the relationship beforehand. The result often is the same. I’m wrong. This book was a plain example of that. I pictured the uke as the seme and the seme as the uke. Why? Because of their personalities at the start of the book. They gave off characteristics of what each position would have. And once my imagination gets interrupted, the book no longer becomes enjoyable. Even more so when the seme gave me nothing to like about him.
Why did I finish the book? Because I liked Quinton. Yes, I did. I loved how the author gave me a chance to get to know who he was when he wasn’t throwing tantrums. Out of the two main characters, he grew as the story progressed. I adored that Ricci allowed me to see what he could be. He came from being a judgmental bastard to a normal person who could make decisions that didn’t include fighting. It made reading about him all the more pleasurable.
Would I recommend this book to others? Yes, why not? Not
because I didn’t enjoy it doesn’t mean someone else won’t. The whole ‘don’t
judge a book by its cover’ was a theme in this one and a lot of people could
relate to this. So, grab a copy and get reading. It was centered around two men
who played college hockey. What’s not to like?
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