Review: Check, Please!: #Hockey

Title: Check, Please!: #Hockey

Author: Ngozi Ukazu

Page Count: 288

My Rating: 5 TURTLES: AMAZING read. I loved this book, and it's going on my favorites shelf forever! You must get a copy of this book!

Preorder it!

Description:

Helloooo, Internet Land. Bitty here!

Y’all... I might not be ready for this. I may be a former junior figure skating champion, vlogger extraordinaire, and very talented amateur pâtissier, but being a freshman on the Samwell University hockey team is a whole new challenge. It’s nothing like co-ed club hockey back in Georgia! First of all? There’s checking. And then, there is Jack—our very attractive but moody captain.

A collection of the first half of the megapopular webcomic series of the same name, Check, Please!: #Hockey is the first book of a hilarious and stirring two-volume coming-of-age story about hockey, bros, and trying to find yourself during the best four years of your life.

Review:

Oh my God, you guys, this graphic novel made me FEEL things! I never make audible noises when I’m reading things, I don’t even usually laugh at loud if I’m watching comedy shows, but Check, Please!: #Hockey made me laugh and squee at the sheer adorableness of this story! I read this whole thing in one sitting, which never happens, so you know it’s serious!

If you had told me several years ago that some of my favorite stories would heavily feature non-equestrian sports I would have looked at you funny, but this new trend of sports teammates/colleagues falling for each other has arrived and I am 100% here for it. (I’ve included a list of my other favorite books and TV shows that follow this trend at the end of the review and I hope that you’ll check them out).

Teammate to lover stories though

There is so much I love about this story! The art is super fun and thoughtfully drawn. The characters are also so distinct and memorable – I especially love the adorable and earnest Bitty and the party-bro with a heart of gold Shitty (whose real name we may or may not learn throughout the course of this book). And, of course, the main selling point of this book for me, I loved the romance between Bitty and Jack. What can I say? I’m weak for sweet queer romances, especially of the teammate to lover variety, and since there are not nearly enough of them (yet) each one I find is like finding a rare gem.

Also, huge bonus points to this book for having a badass character with my name, even if 99% people refer to her by her nickname, Lardo.

One thing that catches me a little bit off guard about graphic novels is that they tend to feel rushed to me. Check, Please has a great arc, but I wanted, like, five more hockey games, and ten more Bitty and Jack scenes. I think this is partly due to the fact that this is a compilation of web-comics. If I had read each page as it was initially released and had to wait a while for the next installment I don’t think it would feel rushed at all.

I think this would be especially true since the author runs “Bitty’s” Twitter account, so people’s experience with the story continues between installments (such a smart idea). The advanced copy has a sampling of some of these tweets, but promises that the published version will have many, many more. 

Picture of me trying to figure out how hockey works

The only other small thing that I would have liked to see was an in-depth explanation of how hockey works. Most of the other stories I know of that follow sports team dedicates a section where they just explain how the game works. It feels a bit info-dumpy, but also necessary for someone like me who has very little knowledge about anything sport-related. There were some explanations of how hockey works here and there, but by the end I was still pretty confused. 

And if you’re thinking “Gee, Larissa, if only there were a magical device that you could type ‘how does hockey work’ into and get as detailed an answer as you’d like,” point taken. 

Thank goodness my roommate for the NYU publishing program I’m taking lent me her advanced copy that she picked up at Book Expo, but I will definitely be picking up my own copy when it comes out in September! And if you’re as excited about getting your own copy as I am, you can always pre-order it.

Now that I have been introduced to this wonderful comic, I definitely won’t be patient enough to wait for volume two to come out to find out what happens next. Lucky for me (and all of you) this comic is not only available online, but it’s still ongoing! So there’s plenty more in store for Jack, Bitty, Shitty and all the others. 

More Queer sports romances! 

These are the stories that I couldn’t help but think of while reading Check, Please! Did I miss any? Let me know in the comments!

Yuri on Ice (TV show)

All for the Game series (book series)

Fence (comic series)

Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases. 

Book Blitz: Fierce

Fierce
L.G. Kelso
(A Whatever It Takes Novel)
Publication date: April 3rd 2018 (re-release)
Genres: New Adult, Romance, Sports

Three years ago, Tori beat the wrong man. Her MMA training partner, nursing a bruised ego, snapped-shattering her trust and confidence.
Now, she's putting herself through college, avoiding all things fight related, and keeping her fists to herself. That is, until her uncle's failing health draws her back to his gym and her old pounding grounds. With her demons still haunting the cage, she's determined to keep up the wall she's so carefully constructed between the past and present.
Until pro-fighter Max Estrada saunters into her life.
The temptation to go glove-to-glove with the sexy Columbian is too much, drawing her back into the world of MMA-a world where her ex-partner reigns as current Middleweight Champion. The secret they share is a liability to his career, and he'll do anything to keep her quiet. If she wants her old life back, and a future with the fighter she's fallen for, she'll have to do more than just survive. With her life on the ropes, she'll have to face her past and fight like she's never fought before.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

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EXCERPT:

The alcohol probably wasn't helping. The side of the bathtub, cool against the back of my legs, felt as if it would fall out from under me as I stared at the water pouring from the bathtub's faucet and over the cuts on my leg.
I went to scrub the soap into the cuts, but my wet shirt kept getting in the way. Every time I moved, it stuck to my skin.
Wrapping the hem of my long shirt around my fingers, I lifted the shirt up, over my head-
"Woah, there, Tori. What are you doing?"
"It's in the way!"
"No, it's not," Max said as he yanked my shirt back down.
"It's wet."
"Well, yes, it is. You can go change in a second. Tori, put your shirt down."
"Why?"
He sighed. "Because you're drunk."
"You've seen me in a sports bra."
"Which you are definitely not wearing right now."
His reaction was making my skin burn again, but this time, I couldn't figure out why. Was it because he so didn't want to see me without a shirt? Was it that bad? I mean, compared to Cheyenne sure, but still.
"The idea of seeing me shirtless is that awful, huh?"
He tugged. I rolled forward, giving up the shirt.
"That's-no."
"I know I don't look like your lingerie model of a girlfriend, but jeez."
"Tori." The conviction in his voice made me stop blabbering like a damn idiot. His fingers found my chin and tilted my head. He was so close. The brown of his eyes were darker in this light, making his eyes look like black pools.
"Should you ever wish to yank your shirt off in front of me when you're sober, I definitely will not stop you. It would be the opposite of awful."
Had he gotten closer? And what did he mean by opposite of awful?
His lips were swollen; he must have taken one hit to the mouth before knocking the other guy out.
The alcohol didn't do as much to my brain as being around Max did. Everything about him teased me in some way. His adrenaline teased out my own. I wanted to pull him against me. I wanted to find someone to fight in an octagon. I wanted to be me again, whoever that was, and I wanted to be it with Max.
"Tori," he said again, and I tore my gaze away from his mouth and back to his eyes. A wave of shivers started at the top of my spine, my skin prickling as it passed through the rest of my body. The look in his eyes…it was quite possibly the best thing I had ever seen.
He continued a moment later. "But right now, you are drunk. So your clothes are staying on."

Author Bio:
L.G. Kelso writes authentic sports fiction about characters falling in love with combat sports and also each other. She's a fan of anything that bashes gender stereotypes, and she can be found in her MMA gym when not writing.
Visit her website at http://www.lgkelso.com for more information about her and upcoming projects, including another book in the Whatever It Takes universe.

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