You Had Me at Hockey

I'm a sucker for hockey romance and this one didn't disappoint. Josh and Sara were personality opposites with irresistible chemistry. I loved their internal monologues and the humor of the situations they got into. Ms. Jamieson did a great job of integrating the issues of anxiety and depression into the story in a way that was very real and relatable. Great read! I'm looking forward to the next in the series.

This is book 2 in the Bears Hockey series and it features Josh and Sara. While I loved their story, it took me a minute to really feel the attraction of these two in a relationship. Josh is a little stuffy and likes everything planned. He’s very structured. Sarah is very spontaneous and loves to have fun. Their extremely different personalities made for an interesting and fiery HOT relationship. The one thing I ABSOLUTELY LOVED in this book was Josh’s “roses are red” poems. They were hilariously epic!

4.5 stars — This book actually delighted me in quite a few ways. And I’m giving it a half star bump for great hockey depiction. I’m not an expert, but as someone who watches hockey quite a bit, it rang truer than most hockey books do. I was surprised by all that was lying in Josh’s psyche, if that makes sense. It was weird, because finally understanding a bit of what made him up and had dominated his thoughts since the accident made me dislike him a bit…and yet, we find it out around the same time as he finally accepts it for himself and starts to turn things around, so yay? So I definitely had conflicting feelings for that boy. On the other hand, I loved the quirkiness of Sara. Not just quirky, but strangely vulnerable too. I read a lot of heroines with self-esteem issues, and sometimes it gets to be a bit much even as I can connect with that. I kind of appreciated the way hers was depicted…it was definitely there, but I guess I felt I got her inside her head, and it was nice that it was balanced by these other moments of self-confidence. They kind of had an adorable romance in so many ways. They were so hesitant, but they couldn’t help but be drawn together. I could have done without quite so many thoughts from Josh of how he shouldn’t be with her, because they didn’t always fit the story for me (sometimes they did, sometimes it felt forced). But wow, their chemistry was unbelievable. Not *just* the steamy chemistry, but also, holy wow *definitely* the steamy chemistry. I think I just also loved how they connected on so many other levels as well — friendship, fun, support, understanding. This book made me laugh in quite a few moments, and Sara definitely belongs on the girl crush list. And now I want to read about Lilly and Easton as well. I will admit that as a born and raised Saskatchewan girl, and Swift Current in particular, this one hit a bit close to home with the accident. I know the author was inspired by Humboldt, but I wonder if she knew about the Swifty one in the 80s — I was just a kid, but I definitely remember it, and the use of SC as the town felt…well, it was hard. So yeah. This was just what I was needing in the moment — something fun and quirky, but with depth.