Damage Control (After the Whistle Book 1)

5 stars because it should get more reads (I'm writing this with only 14 reviews currently). I can't stand sports drama. I never read it. This is my first time finishing one. I felt satisfied the entire read through. It's a romance with your typical romance tropes, but it also felt like both characters in it were adult people with life experiences and their own personalities and their own ways of dealing with their own lives. There were two scenes where I was surprised where the author subtly shifted away from typical romance tropes and created their own original scenes. It was refreshing and continued to establish the maturity and real-ism of the characters. I don't seek out dub-con--I find it triggering at times--but I don't like preachy consent scenes, either. That said, one of the romantic interests is very pushy and domineering; yet their counterpart knows what they want and don't want and is able to navigate this in a way that, too, felt refreshing. Backstories made sense; stressors mades sense. The only complaint I have is a few side-characters were too one-dimensional, but that's romance. Quick and satisfying read that made me look into what else this author wrote.

Story: 4/5 Spice: Low (Descriptions of scenes & # of scenes: it was a close between med and low) Characters: 3/5 -ˏˋ⋆⋆ˊˎ- Overall reco: I want to start off that it was an enjoyable read, pacing was good and overall easy to consume. There was a moment that I thought I knew what was coming, and I was so mad. I was actually fuming as I was reading and then I got to the moment and it didn't quite go down how I was expecting and I'm so glad it didn't. Because if it had I was ready to just get on here and rant about how much I hated these characters. This story is all one POV, Matthew's, and it felt stressful. Matthew is a stressful character and man does that boy have anxiety! He was giving me stress! The positive from this is I felt like I understood Matthew a lot (is he supposed to be kind of Autistic coded? or is that me just projecting?), the negative of this is I absolutely didn't see the chemistry between them at first. I didn't see it until the moment. I didn't exactly mind that though… so it was weird? Or I guess it's more accurate to say that I liked Matthew enough to stay on the ride and see where it went and really, that ending was pretty solid. (Not the epilogue though.. that felt like it was a bit out of place and almost like a characterization of the characters.. but I digress..) but the confrontation felt really good. Andrew is the hard to read bad boy with a heart of gold that felt like he was hard to read. Again, It felt like he was really good a keeping…