Offside: Post 24

Chapter 28: Epilogue

Please note that posts may be a bit slapdash and a bit irregular through the month of March. My sincere apologies!

The epilogue takes place about a month later. Since the Thanksgiving Day Tournament-slash-Hockey Injury-slash- Confessions of Looooooooove, Billie has been able to get ice installed at the old (incredibly convenient) rink, find (many, many) students, get permits, and even the support of the entire town behind her.

So, magic? It's a Christmas Miracle!

It’s steadily snowing, but that isn’t stopping what appears to be a Christmas Eve Eve (ie: the 23^rd of December) Grand Opening of Barker’s School of Hockey Instruction & Training (quite possibly one of the most cumbersome business names ever). There’s hot chocolate and children throwing snowballs and a surprisingly lack of, say, ice hockey for this hockey school’s grand opening.

Shane stops by, mainly to remind readers that his book is next and he’s currently lonely and troubled, because Bobbi has announced her engagement to Gerald. (Apparently she has also added an “e” to her name because she’s suddenly “Bobbie” in this scene.) Oh, also, a stray dog has found Shane and adopted him, so I suppose the door is open for more animals-watching-the-main-couple-have-sex in his book, too.

And that’s pretty much the end of Offside with the exception of a little more smooching and Billie one more time insisting to Logan that she’s not a kid. Given that they’ve been having Teh Sex everywhere and always for almost two months now, I hope he knows she’s not a kid, because ew.

All snark aside—except not really since, as you may have noticed, snark is what I do—there were definitely significant pros and cons to this book.

On the plus side, the hockey was good. The author seemed to know her hockey. When Billie was on the ice, what she was doing made sense. The text didn’t toss around hockey terminology like it was picked out of a pile of magnetic poetry and could be strung together in any order. Similarly, there were not tortured attempts to use hockey terminology as metaphor. I like the idea of hockey terminology as metaphor, but every time I’ve actually seen them shoehorned into texts, they pretty much just made me laugh.

Also plus, I love that Billie was a better hockey player than anyone else in the book. This is the first book at the Fictional Hockey League that we’ve seen a female player at all, let alone one who’s really good. (The only exception to the first half of that statement was the short story one-off where a Not-a-Canucks-Player helped a brand new newbie player learn to skate a bit in order to play rec league hockey.)

I like the idea of tensions based on gender issues, with a woman able to hold her own in a male-dominated place, but I feel like this book went way too far with the reaction Billie got for wanting to play hockey (what with the violence and the property damage and the townspeople up in arms.) That said, I was telling a friend about this book recently. Said friend is from the American Deep South and said that she could see that kind of reaction happening if a woman wanted to play on a football team. So I will allow that it’s a possible reaction, but one that is so far outside my understanding or experience that it seems entirely absurd to me.

I like that these two characters were fairly three dimensional. The narrative for each of them went well beyond constant angst and rehashing of “oh woe is me.” However, unfortunately, I didn’t feel that these two characters worked together, even by novel’s end. Maybe the narrative told us that he loved Billie, but to my mind, it didn’t show that. Sure, it showed that he was in lust with her (ALL THE ERECTIONS EVER) and that he was crazy super jealous if someone else looked at her, but I didn’t feel the emotions between these two characters. Unfortunately, that’s not something that I know how to explain better than I have here.

(In the books I’ve reviewed thus far for the Fictional Hockey League, I’d say I only ‘felt’ the emotional pull between Nickolai and Noel in Nickolai’s Noel, and between Chelsea and Vinnie, the secondary couple in Her Man Advantage. On the other hand, I didn’t loathe the main couple and think that they’re actually an abusive relationship, unlike Play the Man.)

Offside is not a bad book by any means, but I wouldn’t say it was a fantastic book, either. Not to mention that one of the biggest obstacles--- that Billie slept with Logan by posing as her sister Betty--- was not only not dealt with in a way that I personally think would be appropriate (which is to say acknowledging that that’s assault) but not even dealt with at all, really. Logan just seems to decide to forget about it, after his two hour magic sulk. I also did not like that there was so much slut shaming and no one was ever called out on it. Not only did the misogynistic characters do it—which would at least be in character for these guys who are threatened by a confident woman who plays hockey better than they do-- but other female characters do it, too. That isn’t to say that women don’t slut shame in real life, since, sadly, they do all the time, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to see people (even fictional ones) called out on it, particularly in a novel where it happens so damn much.

What will the Fictional Hockey League take on next? Come back next time (Monday, I hope) to find out. In the meantime, here are two memes that are relevant to our Beer League-y interests. :D

Postscript: I'm adding this about a week after writing this post. I'm currently back in Phoenix and I got to play a bit of scrimmage tonight and talk to some people and just generally embrace the beer league culture again, albeit briefly. I brought up the FHL with Flurry afterwards and this book in particular. And while she agreed with me about the horrors of the duct tape in chapter one, she actually pointed out that most places aren't like Phoenix.  (Well, obviously, but she meant as far as adult development hockey goes.) She's talked to lots of transplants who have played beer league in other states and towns, and segregated teams are more the norm, especially in places that have a tradition of hockey-- presumably because women can develop up through girls' hockey (non checking) and into women's teams, and there are just more women playing.

Couple that with what I said above about another friend talking about football in the American South, and I guess this book's premise is less farfetched.

THAT SAID, since the beer league in question in Offside is specifically non-checking, I still don't see why people are THAT up in arms about Billie's decision to play. Hockey players are, in my experience, the most WELCOMING athletes and people ever. There's just this instant respect one player tends to have for another just for stepping onto the ice, beginner or not, woman or not.

I know that when it comes to certain things that seem so OBVIOUS to me, such as the inherent  desirability of gender equality, I have a blind spot. So I suppose you should take that into consideration when considering my overall commentary on Offside.

That said, I don't actually take back anything I wrote, I just thought I should add this other opinion here, too.

Overall, Offside was fairly well written, if poorly proofread. (I've read far worse, though, so as long as you're not a stickler for grammar, you'd probably be okay.) The pacing was a little off, but far better than Play the Man, which was just sloooooooow. As you know, I don't think Billie's actions as a teenager were properly addressed and I think Logan's erection got way too much notice throughout. If this author had another hockey novel, I'd buy it. (And if the other triplet books were to be suddenly appear in my life, I'd read them. But I have enough to read and pay for that I won't be seeking them out.)

Monady's's post-- beginning a new book!-- is written and posted, so please enjoy that. Nothing after that is not yet, so we shall see if I manage it in between enjoying my old stomping grounds, hanging with friends, and later frantically preparing for more March craziness.

Play the Man: Post 30

Epilogue: Your Happily Ever After Ain’t Mine

Epilogue pregnancies, such as with Body Check, are a common trope. Play the Man goes with the other common epilogue trope: the epilogue wedding day. It turns out to be the very most perfect day. There’s a whole bunch of internal monologuing from Jenna about how she and Ryan have gotten through the very worst thing that could ever happen to them and now they can celebrate.

We learn that the Ryan and Nick’s friendship never recovered.

It didn’t hurt that Ryan had put a target on his back and had taken him out at practice every chance he got (152).

This strikes me as unlikely. Again, hearkening back to the many, many times I’ve gone to watch the Coyotes practice, there is rarely much contact in practice. Why would you risk injury skating against your own teammates? Besides which, most practices are drills of various kinds—there isn’t room for taking out your teammates. (Especially recently concussed ones.)

They certainly weren’t the best of friends, but then again they weren’t before, either (152).

Really, novel? You’re going to re-rewrite history? What happened to the poor Ryan has been cheated on by the TWO PEOPLE HE TRUSTED MOST? WAAAANNNHHH. Ugh.

Before the ceremony, Alex shows up to give Jenna the bride gift. (Is this a traditional thing? The best man gives a gift from the groom to the bride? Did not know that.)

She opened the velvet box and found a strand of flawless, white, seven-millimeter pearls (153).

Alex, being Alex, makes a pearl necklace sex joke, which, I know is totally in character but kind of doesn’t fit the mood of the overall epilogue. Then the narrative specifies that the necklace is a symbol, since Ryan bought something for Jenna that better fits her style than his (unlike the engagement ring) but that the engagement ring “complemented her finger” just as Ryan complements Jenna. Overwrought, but it’s the conclusion to a romance novel so I’ll allow it.

But where does this all leave our odd man out? Nick attends the wedding, mainly because it would have been suspicious of him not to. He and Jenna have not spent any time together since the affair. He expects to leave as soon as he can congratulate the bride and groom, but then he meets Katie and they flirt and dance. (“They stood close together, although not too close” (157). Apparently Nick is leaving room for the Holy Ghost?) And the novel ends with the image of Nick and Katie smiling at each other.

BUT! That’s not the image I want to leave you with. Oh no, no, no. Instead, imagine the toasts. Apparently the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup two weeks before the wedding, so they have it at the wedding reception for Ryan and Jenna to drink from.

Her mother had given her a plastic poncho to wear, so Ryan wouldn’t spill any champagne on her wedding dress as he lifted the giant silver Cup for her to sip from (155).

Because nothing says elegant wedding photos as a plastic poncho! I like to picture it as one of the old-school Walt Disney World ones, where it’s BRIGHT YELLOW and has a Mickey Mouse on the back. Happy wedding!

Some final thoughts on Play the Man… It’s… not great. I mean, I was genuinely surprised that Jenna stayed with Ryan, and being surprised by the outcome in a romance novel is pretty rare, I’ll give it that. I don’t like that Nick, though, is less of a character then and more of a tool for fixing the initial relationship. (And I use "fixing" here only in the sense that the couple stayed together, not that I think it is a healthy, stable, or enviable relationship that has had any of its major flaws attended to.)

I found the book incredibly repetitive, full of unnecessary and monotonous recitation of characters’ thoughts. I despised the perspective jumping. It was irritating, unnecessary, and frankly I thought it was a symptom of an inexperienced writer as opposed to a carefully thought through choice. I can only hope that that’s something the author chose not to employ in future novels, because it was whiplashingly awful. I didn’t like any of the characters, frankly, so it’s hard to say much of anything else about the book because for me, personally, characters are pretty much the most important thing.

Come back Monday for FHL's third book, another Harlequin Blaze. The pace is far superior and it's a book full wild improbabilities! Fun!

Body Check: Post 24-

Chapter 12 & Epilogue: Make-Up Sex and Beyond

Our hero and heroine have already basically made up and gotten back together, but afterwards Brody had to have his investigatory interview so he promises to come join Hayden at the hotel when that’s done.

Hayden tells Brody that she loves him and he’s filled with “sheer bliss” (156).

The joy in his heart spilled over, warming his insides and making his pulse skate through his veins like a player on a breakaway (156).

Sigh. We had to get one more hockey metaphor shoehorned in here somehow, I guess.

Hayden even goes so far as to say she’ll go to his games but she’ll also bring work along with her because, don’t forget, she hates hockey. That’s … not very gracious, frankly. Brody assures her that he’s already trying to sign with a west coast team so that she can keep teaching at Berkeley. Magnanimous. Not just any college will hire someone without a PhD after all. Harrumph. Then he tells her he loves her more than hockey and asks her to marry him.

They cap this off with more sex, this time in the hallway in the same place they first had sex. He even “peppered little kisses on her flat abdomen” (158). What happened to Hayden being curvy? Oh, right, she’s only curvy in the socially-acceptable way, butt and boobs, I guess.

But then, too, we have to contrast her flat abdomen in this scene with the rounded one in the epilogue, which happens a year later, in CA, when she is five months pregnant. Y’know, I’m very used to the epilogue-pregnancy trope in historical romances but I naively didn’t expect it in a contemporary. How is Hayden going to be a mom AND a professor AND finish her PhD?

Apparently Darcy is visiting and has taken a vow of celibacy. I frankly expected Darcy to get together with another player on the Warriors and realize that commitment isn’t so bad. So point to the author for surprising me with the vow of celibacy.

The epilogue takes us backwards to the time between the last scene and this. To sum up, Brody was (conveniently!) signed by the Vipers, putting him in LA. The text is very confusing here about commutes and courses, but I think they’re living in San Diego and Hayden is teaching online seminars as well as working on her PhD at the University of San Diego. I guess she’d have to be teaching online, since it’s 7.5 hours between San Diego and Berkeley. But she wouldn’t be a professor, not teaching only online. She wouldn’t be able to partake in faculty meetings and other kinds of university service that’s required.

 Brody is commuting from San Diego. That’s a two hour commute each way assuming no traffic. The only way I can see this working is if the practice facility for the LA Vipers is in between San Diego and LA so that some days he only has a one hour commute. But it’s a stupid set up regardless. Two hours after games before Brody can get home to San Diego? Games end at about 10pm, or later. And if the fictional Vipers practice at all like the actual Coyotes, they’d need to be at their practice rink almost every day at about 9am. Not to mention the required gym time, much of which has to happen at the arena and/or training facilities under the eye of trainers. And anyway, why not just live in LA since Hayden isn’t going to campus anyway.

I’m pretty sure there’s something missing from the text, but I don’t think enough is missing to explain the utterly bizarre choice of living arrangements.

The narrative then goes back to the wedding, which occurred in Chicago. Craig Wyatt/Mr Serious attended along with Sheila-the-now-Ex, to whom he’s engaged. Also, she’d apparently gotten half of Presley’s estate. Speaking of Presley, he didn’t attend as he was in rehab. Geez, these two couldn’t hold off their wedding for Hayden’s only family to be able to attend?

Other than rehab, Presley had gotten a fine and four years’ probation. He also lost the team which is now owned by the gentlemen’s club party birthday boy. Random. Becker also got probation and Brody still isn’t speaking with him.

Back in the present, we learn that Brody is policing Hayden’s food choices, which pisses me off. He didn’t bring her the ice cream she asked him to pick up. Why?

“I told you why I didn’t pick up the ice cream,” Brody grumbled. “You’ve got to eat healthy, babe. You’re carrying a future champion in that belly of yours. Our son needs proper nourishment” (163).

This is conversation is presented as playful banter—Hayden counters by saying it’s a daughter who will win the Nobel Prize. But I’m more concerned by Brody’s assertion on what Hayden can and cannot eat. It’s perfectly reasonable for him to voice concern or talk with Hayden about her food choices and how it might affect the unborn offspring, but it’s not okay to make decisions about her body.

As I said, it’s supposed to be flirtatious, to some extent, and the two head off to meet Darcy for dinner with promises of sex when they get back home. And of course the novel ends with the two of them telling each other how much they love each other. Brody says he’d do just about anything she asked because he loves her that much. Anything except, apparently, lie for her father or buy her ice cream.

So, that was Body Check by Elle Kennedy, all 165 pages of Harlequin Blaze glory. Hockey Hero meets Hockey-hating Heroine with family troubles that affect him as well and they fall in love anyway, amidst the concern of their one-dimensional friends and family.