The first half of this book was great, solid 4 stars, then came many fill in chapters that didn’t need to be there.

Nicole Skye has moved to town to live with her father, the town sheriff, because of something that happened in her past. He can’t get this girl out of his head, he knows he should just stay away especially with her being from the rival school but he can’t ignore these feeling. As Thomas falls for Nicole, his father becomes concerned and soon Thomas has to lie about everything relating to Nicole.

Her lack of color is contributed to by the fact that the story is told from Ryan’s POV but the story could have been so much stronger if Nicole was more interesting. The heroine starts dating the hero, a hockey player from her school rival’s team (which her brother and ex both play for her school’s team). They really became each others support system and just had so much respect for each other through it all and I live for that! The book is not horrible, but it is simply another self inserted fan fiction where there is no story, just girl meets boy and he becomes obsessed. it felt like the author was purposeful trying to make this book 500 some pages so they just thought “hmmm let’s add everything in that I possibly can” I’m not even joking.

His whole life revolves around hockey, he doesn’t have a backup plan, doesn’t even put much effort into his studies knowing he won’t be there to finish out the year.Part of Thomas wants to lead a quiet life but his need to please his father wins out and that need is manifested in fairly objectionable ways. Offside is the first book to explain these peculiarities, taking us on a thoughtful and engaging tour of America’s sports culture and connecting it with other fundamental American exceptionalisms. Bailey is smart, independent and a great person who isn’t afraid of hard work to achieve her dreams. Hockey romances are my favorite thing to read but Bailey is the most dull, boring thing I’ve ever encountered. It’s an over the top story with a lot of over the top occurrences but it’s larger than life storyline has stuck with me.