Rating: ⭐️
Received an arc from Edelweiss+ for an honest review
You know that feeling when you are really excited for something great but it doesn't end up being what you wanted? That's how I feel about this book. A young adult love story that features two teens of color who find a relationship because of basketball; it sounds like something I could really like, but I just didn't.
I think this was hard for me to like because something was off from the first page. Specifically what I mean, is that there was this cringe moment out of movie where the boy looks at the girl for the first time and- oh look they are in love. Not the first chapter, the first page. Everything from there felt weird and unrealistic to a point where it didn't have any redeeming elements to make it realistic to me.
As I mentioned, they practically fell in love from the first encounter and they didn't even speak to each other. The main male character, Rex, becomes so infatuated with Carli, the main female character, and ends up looking at pictures from her from Carli's brother Cole's Instagram? Like that is weird. Then he ends up going to the hospital where she is having her surgery?? Keep in mind they haven't spoken to each other for real yet, but he feels close enough to her that he can go try and be with her before her surgery; no boy, sorry that's not okay.
Then when they actually do meet, he is confident enough to come up to her like he's known her his whole life. Then they talk while watching Cole's basketball game, they get to know each other, whatever; what ruins this is that they disagree about something and one of the characters thinks to themselves, "Wow this must be our first fight" like no! You don't even know each other yet, nor are you in a relationship! Then thirty minutes later (in book time) they are kissing in front of everyone at the game? Then he gets pulled away and is in trouble with his coach and then Carli has the nerve to be like "why isn't he paying attention to me or looking at me?" like he just got in trouble, and not everything is about you!
Both of these characters made me angry. They were childish and not ready to be in a relationship together or separately! For upperclassman in high school, they really didn't act like it, and I feel like Tamani could do a better job portraying her high school characters.
Then there was drama between Carli's parents and past/present drama with Rex's father. It's like every cliché thing that can be added to a character or their storyline was present. I wanted something unique but everything felt so cookie-cutter, so much so that one of the cliché story arcs was repeated twice for two separate characters and only changed minor details.
I think this was just not the story for me. I'm not a fan of instalove, and I'm definitely not a fan of it on the first page of the story. Overall, there was just a lot I feel like could be improved from this story and I'm sad to say that I didn't enjoy it.