Halftime

Books, Coffee & Passion
I was so hyped for this book because it was an all hockey romance! Faith, just as Seb, was a hockey player and I really wanted to read about her perspective, her struggles and experiences in hockey and of course their romance. Their story had a tricky premise and I was a little worried about that.

Seb was a great guy. Sweet, caring and still hung up on his ex: Faith. They had a major blow up soon after Seb started college but, even though Seb thought he had moved on, it was pretty clear that he still had feelings for her. I went into this thinking I would struggle with Seb, but the author did an amazing job with the circumstances surrounding their break up and with his character.  I loved him so much! I need to stop loving characters this much from the beginning, because that usually means it's harder to meet my high expectations regarding their love interest. Spoiler alert: It happened with this book. Cooper, Seb's hockey teammate and friend, was a great character too. I'm very curious about him, I want to understand why he was so invested in Seb and Faith's relationship. I hope we get his story! 

Faith was a complex character. I loved Faith, the goalie - hockey player aspects, in the story. I loved the way the author showed the double standards for male and female athletes, this is such an important topic and I enjoyed it being exposed. I adored Faith's passion for hockey and how hard she fought for her dream. She was also a great team player and her story was very empowering. Unfortunately, she did annoy me, at times, mostly because of the way she handled Seb. I understood that she had major trust issues and she had her reasons for it. Her parents relationship was very dysfunctional, her mom and her dad were awful together, and Seb drunk dialing her, leading to their breakup (before the book started), didn't really help her with trusting. Honestly, I wasn't convinced Faith would trust Seb completely, no matter what he did. And I hated that for him. In spite of that, I really wanted them to be together and I rooted for them. I just doubted that Faith was ready to completely trust him (or any other love interest) at this point.

Then... the epilogue... I LOVED it. I cried when I read it. I can't put into words how much I truly loved it. It was PERFECT! Frankly, I was thinking about rating it 3 or 3.5 stars until the epilogue, but I ended up boosting it up to 4 stars. That epilogue...