I’ve had this book in my TBR for almost 2 years, since before it had a cover, a release date, or even this title. I was sooooo excited about this book, so I’m really sad that I ended up not really enjoying it… 🙁

This book is described as being “rivals to lovers” and “slow burn”, but, in my opinion, it is neither.

Whoever described this as a slow burn needs to pay me reparations because wtf do you mean slow burn when the MC is INSTANTLY attracted to the LI?? Sure, it might not be insta-love, but it sure as hell is insta-lust! 😑 The first 100-ish pages of this book were paaaaainful to read, because Gene is immediately attracted to Luis (which I already didn’t love bc like… this was supposed to be a slow burn?), and he talks about Luis’s ~very hot~ body literally every time he is on page. Gene was always ogling at Luis, spending paragraphs talking about how hot he is, obsessing over his very attractive body… It was not only uncomfortable (like, can you notice *anything else* about Luis, please?), but it was also VERY annoyingly repetitive! If you took a shot every time Gene talks about hot Luis is, you’d die from alcohol poisoning in like 50 pages, because Gene mentions Luis’s attractiveness literally every page. His obsession with Luis’s body was genuinely mind numbing.

Another thing I didn’t like about this book was the foundation for Gene and Luis’s relationship. Gene immediately dislikes Luis for apparently no reason. Like, yeah, Luis is a little standoff-ish and not always a great team player, but, other than that, Luis’s only “crime” was being introverted and anxious. Luis did absolutely NOTHING to justify Gene's levels of hatred for him. Gene’s animosity seemed to be focused on Luis’s introversion, which is just bizarre. It was soooo infuriating to read, not only because that hatred was completely unfounded, but also because Gene is OBSESSSED with Luis. It was so strange to see Gene hate Luis, but also constantly talk about how hot he is. Both the hatred and the attraction seemed unjustified to me. I genuinely can’t believe this is being advertised as “rivals to lovers”. There’s basically no rivalry; it’s just Gene obsessing over Luis and getting mad at his introversion for no reason. 🫤

At some point we learn that Gene and Luis used to know each other in college, which helped clarify Gene’s interest in Luis – although, I will say, I don’t think it really justifies Gene’s unhealthy obsession. It takes 20% of the book for it to be revealed that Luis used to help Gene practice, in college (so they were friendly-ish, I guess). At 30%, we learn that Gene apparently had a crush on Luis back then, which I guess explains his fixation with Luis. HOWEVER!!!! I don’t think this was well done AT ALL! They hadn’t spoken in 7 YEARS! There’s noooo way Gene still had a crush on Luis lmfao 🥴. And, even if he did, WE haven’t seen any of this! We are TOLD Gene used to like Luis (almost a decade ago), but we’re never given reasons for it, we never see their college friendship develop, we never see them bond…

Not only do we not see reasons for Gene to like Luis in the past, but we also never see reasons for him to like Luis in the present. Their present “romance” is entirely based on the fact that Gene is instantly fixated on Luis, but his current obsession is based on his past crush, which we never even got to see! This is a “romance” where the MC is instantly attracted to the LI (and constantly talks about his body, and basically nothing else), and the MC also hates the LI (for basically no reason); you are then expected to believe this weird obsession is because of a past crush you never get to see develop, and you’re supposed to believe didn’t falter after almost a decade. It just wasn’t well done, in my opinion. I’m sorry. 😐😐😐

So, overall, I found the setup for this romance very poor. Their past “friendship” was barely even established (I’m putting “friendship” in quotes bc I genuinely still don’t know if they were actually good friends or just friendly acquaintances lol; that’s how poorly explained their past relationship is lmfao). In present day, Gene just hates Luis for no plausible reason, while also thirsting over his body whenever he sees him. All of this made the foundation for this romance not work for me, and because I didn’t like the foundation, it was hard for me to care about the rest of their relationship.

The shift from “rivals” to lovers felt very sudden; I don’t think they bonded enough to become friends, let alone lovers 😐. At less than 50% Gene is already in love with Luis, which I didn’t get at all. I didn’t feel anything when they kissed for the 1st time. They decide to have sex before they even have their 2nd kiss, which left me staring at the page like… 🧍🏻🧍🏻🧍🏻 damn I’m VERY ace. I’m not the biggest fan of sex scenes, so seeing them fuck before seeing a reason for them to even *LIKE* each other was JARRING lmfao 💀💀💀. I do appreciate that they always asked for consent, though! 👌🏻

There’s obviously a 3rd act breakup that makes some sense, I guess. I wish they just talked to each other, but I’ve seen much worse, so I wasn’t mad. This breakup is supposedly weeks long, but it only takes up 20 pages of the book, so it genuinely felt like nothing lol. Regardless, I cared so little about their romance that I didn’t feel anything at all when they broke up, or when they got back together.

Other random things:
➤ I’ll forget about the SCs very quickly (they were mostly irrelevant).
➤ I appreciate the representation.
➤ I didn’t understand shit about the baseball stuff lol.
➤ At least it was a quick read, I guess.