All Laced Up by Erin Fletcher

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Title: All Laced Up
Author: Erin Fletcher
Series: All Laced Up #1
Published by: Entangled: Crush
Release Date: October 10, 2016
Pages: 184
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Sports Romance, Young Adult
Source: NetGalley
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks
My rating:

Blurb:

Everyone loves hockey superstar Pierce Miller. Everyone except Lia Bailey.

When the two are forced to teach a skating class to save the rink, Lia’s not sure she’ll survive the pressure of Nationals and Pierce’s ego. Not only can’t he remember her name, he signed her bottle of water like she was one of his groupies. Ugh.

But if there’s one thing Lia knows better than figure skating, it’s hockey. Hoping to take his ego down a notch—or seven—she logs into his team website under an anonymous name to give him pointers on his less-than-stellar playing.

Turns out, Pierce isn’t arrogant at all. And they have a lot in common. Too bad he’s falling for the anonymous girl online. No matter how much fun they’re starting to have in real life, she’s afraid he’s going to choose fake-Lia over the real one...

Disclaimer: This book contains a swoony hockey player (and his equally swoony friends!), one-too-many social media accounts, kisses that’ll melt ice, and a secret identity that might not be so secret after all...

My Review:

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

4.5 stars — Well that was apparently JUST what I was in the mood for!  After a few meh books, I took to this one like a fat kid on a smartie — I devoured it right up!  I stayed up way too late last night reading it after getting started, and then gobbled the last half up in no time this morning.  I even didn’t want it to end.  I just wanted to keep reading about Lia and Pierce.  I don’t know if it was just the mood I was in, or if it really was just that fantastic, but whatever it was it was awesome.

So what was great about it?  Well it was a nice classic YA contemporary romance.  A couple of fantastic characters going through their own individual struggles…and I really liked that their struggles didn’t automatically fix right away, but was something they had to keep working through through most of the book (even if we got an unrealistic climax resolution, I just didn’t care and actually craved it).  Both characters were both genuinely good people who made mistakes here and there, but had some great personality and sass.  I felt like they stayed pretty true to who they both were throughout it.

And the bantering and development of their relationship, both online and in real life, was so satisfying!  It gave me some great cute/sweet/awww moments, and that first kiss was very gratifying!  I don’t know, maybe it’s that while I have no skills on the ice whatsoever, I love both sports (hockey and figure skating) and have always admired the athletes that pursue those sports.  And while there were no sports crossovers (ie they didn’t try out each other’s sports), I do love the idea of a hockey player and a figure skater together, ever since my early days of watching The Cutting Edge over and over.

I think the only thing I would have liked more of would have been depth on secondary characters.  I mean, we actually got some great depth with both families (LOVED the relationship between Pierce and his brother Carson), but I was hoping to learn a bit more about each of their friends.  Especially since this appears to be the start of a series, I was surprised that I didn’t really crave anyone else’s story, so I have no idea what’s going to be coming next.  I mean, don’t get me wrong…I will be looking forward to more, it’s just that this story was very focused on Pierce and Lia, and we didn’t really get as much from the friends in their lives as I would have liked.

I probably should round down because of that, and because I’m usually not big on miscommunication plots, but I just ended it feeling such a high that I’m going with my gut.  Love it when a book pushes all of my own personal buttons.  🙂