Balance

read for the swoon sisters' book club liveshow: november 2022

i was so excited for this book but no. age gap doesn't always bother me but when it isn't done well its fucking creepy like this book. it wasn't even the fact she was underaged necessarily or even that there was a power dynamic like coach and gymnast. the main thing that bothered me was how the hero treated the heroine. i don't even mind an asshole hero in a series because there's character development and i even love bully romances but this is a grown-ass man being rude to everybody, especially to the underaged girl he's having sex with who is his gymnast and he's cheating on his girlfriend with her. like it's just too many things at once. the reason this got an extra 0.5 of a star is because i loved the gymnastics aspect of this and it talked about the gymnastics moves and training a lot which doesn't happen a ton in sports romances. 

Someone recommended this as “a book similar to magnolia parks angst” bitch where?

First, this was pure paedophilia, rape and taking advantage of a minor? The author tried to twist it around to convince that it's the right trope but all she did was convince me that this man is nothing but a fucking pervert

Fuck this shit. I wasted so much of my time reading this only to get that ending. I kept waiting for it to get better but alas. I am never getting my 4 hours back