Winging It by Cate Cameron

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Title: Winging It
Author: Cate Cameron
Series: Corrigan Falls Raiders #3
Published by: Entangled: Crush
Release Date: May 16, 2016
Format: eARC
Pages: 163
Genres: Sports Romance, Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Source: NetGalley
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:

Blurb:

Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains adult language, ice-melting kisses, and a swoon-worthy hero. This fake relationship romance will have you wishing for a hockey player of your own…

Natalie West and Toby Cooper were best friends growing up, on and off the ice. But when Toby’s hockey career took off, their friendship was left behind. Now Natalie has a crazy plan to land her crush—Toby’s biggest rival—and she needs Toby’s help to pull it off.

When Nat asks Toby to be her fake boyfriend, he can’t say no. Not when it means getting his best friend back. But Natalie is all grown up now, and spending time with her—even when it’s just playing hockey together—stirs up a lot of feelings, old and new. Suddenly pretending to be interested in her isn’t hard at all…if only she wanted him and not his enemy.

Hockey tore them apart. Can it put them back together?

My Review:

I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

3.5 stars — This was a super cute addition to the series, and I was actually surprised when it wasn’t Toby and Dawn…for some reason I totally thought it was going to be.  But Nat was perfect for Toby, so it obviously worked out in the end.  😛

I found that this one just didn’t *quite* have the same depth as the previous 2 stories in this series…hence the half star loss.  (Well, that and I wanted a bit more from the romance as well, but I’ll get back to that)  I think if the previous two books hadn’t impressed me so much with the different issues that the author chose to tackle or at least bring up, then perhaps I wouldn’t have been expecting it and wouldn’t have been so disappointed if that makes sense.  Not that it didn’t tackle interesting topics — but they seemed shallower in comparison.  Like I did appreciate how Ms. Cameron broached the subject of Nat’s jealousy of Toby’s hockey career, and initially I was all onboard feeling sorry for Nat.  And then the author just turned me right on my head, and I was so impressed with how that went along and developed.  I liked that Nat and Toby had the kind of relationship where he felt he could be honest with her and help her back on her path.

On the other hand, I didn’t really see much from Toby’s side of things.  Not that every character needs to be dealing with something, but I guess I wanted to learn more about Toby and see him grow and whatnot.  I mean, he had his cousin to deal with, but he didn’t really learn a lot of lessons there…maybe that’s because it was mostly Scott’s issues, and Toby was just dealing with the fallout?  Other than falling in love with Nat, not much happened on Toby’s side of things…unless I just missed it (which is possible).

What I did really love and had me smiling ear to ear were the playful interactions between Toby and Nat.  You could really see what made them friends in the first place, and I felt a lot of friendship and mild flirting chemistry coming from them.  The scene where he grabs her bag and races for the car had me almost giggling out loud.  But I wanted more of that.  And I wanted it to go further.  The kiss came so early, and then there was just very light stuff in the romance department (the phone calls really) until the end.  It left me a bit disappointed, b/c I have a feeling it could have been really great and butterfly inducing.  But it just wasn’t there.

So now that I write that all out, I’m thinking of rounding down instead of up.  It’s not that I didn’t enjoy myself, it’s just that I wanted more…and I know I can get more from this author.  But you can bet I’ll be on the lookout for more from her.