Gabi’s coming out not only felt rushed, I actually felt a bit uncomfortable with how there was a bit of pressure from Theo too. This is where too many concepts in one book felt like it weakened the overall story. I felt it easy to relate to not only Gabi’s experiences, but his fears of coming out to his family. He still had his moments of being insufferable, but it got easier to swallow as the book went on.Īs someone from a Latinx background, I have experienced the old way of thinking, aka homophobia, that happens a lot in that culture.

I found him to be very self-centered and annoying, but his character improved when he finally realized how much of an a-hole he was being. This happened with Theo, he was not an easy perspective to read from in the first half of this book. That’s one thing that followed from the author’s first book, characters that come off as unlikeable for a majority of the book. I had a preference for Gabi as he was a better character overall and not as much of a curmudgeon as Theo. The author does an amazing job at creating a unique voice for each character. Each chapter flips back and forth between the two perspectives. In this book, we have two main protagonists, the two rivals, Gabi Moreno and Theo Mori. It’s a lot to unpack in one book in a short amount of time.

But, in addition to enemies-to-lovers, we also get a rush to save a closing restaurant, a rush to fulfill homecoming duties, a rush to learn soccer before the big homecoming game, and coming out to homophobic parents. If this was the only trope that was hit on within this novel, I think things could have flowed a lot better, and the romantic aspect would have read a lot stronger. The premise of two rivals coming together, enemies-to-lovers, is such a classic trope, but this time we get it with diverse queer characters. This was a book I was pretty excited about after I read and enjoyed the author’s debut novel.

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