Рецензия на книгу

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  Wanda_Magnus

  31 декабря 2025

  Why do women love this?..

  God forbid I try to answer that question in this review. Because answering it always means asserting some right - either the right of this kind of fiction to be, or the right of women to choose their reading. None of this needs asserting, for it just happens to exist in the same world as us. To quote the classic, get over it.

  It felt like cheating to choose only two books from the six-book series - but I could only read about the characters I’d grown fond of because of the TV show. As it always goes with literature that requires emotional involvement - a hard task for me, honestly - it took time, space, a pinch of Canadian taxes, and two extremely talented twinks to hook me on it.

  In the part 2 (6, in the overall chronology), Shane and Ilya finally get together, but they are still closeted from most of the world. They try to stick to the plan for their piecemeal coming out, which initially consist of the flimsy "wait until we're old enough so it won't do any harm". In the background, Ilya fights depression, and his closeted life does his fighting no good. But of course, when you're a public figure with such a glaring secret, you shouldn't expect it to comply with your plans.

  This is that type of story where the plot is secondary - now, a mere week and so after reading it, I can't recall it event by event. However, I remember the feeling - grave anxiety, soft melancholy, and sweet compassion that all the characters radiate in each other's direction. It's exactly the kind of fiction where character dynamic means more than the plot - and can be carefully transplanted into the soil of any other universe, preserving the emotion. This prose has grown out from fanfiction, after all, and inherited its soulmat-ish vibe: whatever the time and place, the characters should belong together.

  And that's the most curious part - because Rachel Reid made up the plot, but the series gave it the aura. She deserves credit for detecting the conflict, creating the meshes, and writing funny dialogue - but everything else was made by Crave. That's why my review is biased - I don't think I would ever read something hockey-related, if it weren't for its beautiful adaptation.

  The universe of Heated Rivalry has become the nicest gift for a lot of girls worldwide, including me. Why did I like it? Because it's kind, sexy, and hope-instilling.

  If you met something kind, sexy, and hope-instilling, why wouldn't you like it?

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