I didn’t realize this would have cheating in it. That’s definitely not my thing. ( )

I didn’t realize this would have cheating in it. That’s definitely not my thing. ( )

I was thinking for the first half of this book that I liked this but would not like it as much as I liked book one in this series. I was SO wrong. Ryan managed some pretty fancy footwork here and I ended up loving this story. I also came to a place where I was, if not liking Jared (one MC) precisely at least finding him really hot. He is an ass, but he possessed my two favorite qualities in a person - he is super smart and does not suffer fools, and he is honest even when it reveals his flaws. Banner (the other MC) is all kinds of awesome, and I loved that she was caring and still ruthless. It is possible to maintain that balance, but it is really hard.

A couple things kept this from being a 5-star. One was Banner's super close friend who is a regular presence at the beginning of the book straight up disappears without explanation about a third of the way in. There are a bunch of events in this book where anyone would require best friend time, and Banner does that sort of friend bonding-- until she hooks up with Jared and the BFF disappears entirely. Another issue was Banner's weight obsession. Ryan stresses how Banner has come to feel comfortable in her body, but that is not what she shows. All the way to the very end of the book when Banner expresses that she accepts her (taut) curves she is also apologizing -- she says something along the lines of nature made me this way so I can't help it and I accept it but I sure wish I could be a single digit girl. That is unfortunate. I loved that she prioritized getting in shape, that she worked out and was careful about food intake, but great shape comes in delicious flavors, and curvy is one of them. This is a sensitive issue for me since I am naturally curvy. I am fat now (and I know I am supposed to embrace that but I don't personally see it as attractive because I know it is not healthy and I am not taking care of the machine), but there have been times where I was in amazing shape. In my 20's and 30's I spent most weekends rock climbing, trekked for 6 weeks in the Himalayas, and ran 3-5 miles a day 4x a week and I was still an hourglass and I hated my body. That makes me sad now, and in retrospect I see that my healthy body was beautiful. I hate to see that narrow size zero view of what constitutes a beautiful body (the view that was drummed into me) reinforced. Otherwise I really loved this book, and Kennedy Ryan has moved into my small stable or romance writer favorites. Book 3 in the Hoops series is coming up after a little break, and I expect I will be jumping into her other series soon. ( )

Purely coincidentally, this is the third book in the past few weeks that I've read that involves an overweight heroine. Act-ual-ly,..they have all been good: Block Shot, The Fastest Way To Fall (Denise Williams), and Teach Me (Olivia Dade). It's a wonderful topic but I have read romances around this topic previously and not been particularly interested. These 3 books are more "in depth" or something - the heroines are interesting and the weight is only a small aspect of their stories.

I agree with the reader below about Jared - but that was a positive for me - he was a hero/anti-hero - a little different from the usual exemplary romantic hero. He is so heavy handed, but there was plenty of drama in his bull-at-a-gate approach. The irony was he wasn't playing games, even though Banner, along with the reader, feared that he was duplicitous or manipulative - that we would be betrayed/couldn't trust him.

Kennedy Ryan's writing is top notch. I thought I'd read a couple of her novels, but see that it's only one, Flow. And I'm surprised there are not more in my libraries. ( )

ugh, this was kind of a let down after book one. I really enjoyed Jared from what we saw of him in the first book but this one was just not for me, character-wise.

To start with what I liked and why this is still three stars, Ryan's writing is still phenomenal. This is my third book (and I really need to read [b:The Rebel King|48559004|The Rebel King (All the King's Men Duet #2)|Kennedy Ryan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1573900861l/48559004._SY75_.jpg|73014419] soon) by her and they've all had such high quality writing. Even though I had issues with the characters, I did think they were very well fleshed out and even when I disliked them I understood them. I also appreciate the work Ryan puts into creating the careers for her characters and the world around them. I almost always appreciate her side characters.

As far as the main characters went, we have Banner and Jared, who are both sports agents, and, to a lesser extent, Zo, who is a basketball player and was dating Banner at the start of this book. This is where things started to go wrong for me because there is cheating in this book. The book never presents this as a good thing, but it still just not something I like in this book. Jared is just so pushy that I found myself really disliking him. Normally, I actually tend to like when the hero makes a lot of effort to pursue the heroine and isn't easily turned away. It's one of those things that I would hate in real life but I like in my romances. However, in this book it felt like a bit too much. Jared talks about how he doesn't respect Banner's relationship with Zo and for me, that was too much for me. I just felt like if he didn't respect her relationships, then he didn't respect her. I don't have any problem with him being a bit rude and overly-pushy as long as I feel like he respects the love interest and I just didn't feel like that here.
The other issue is that I didn't really like Banner either unfortunately. Because she was just caught in this sort of love triangle between Zo and Jared she ended up seeming a bit wishy-washy and unsure instead of the powerful and agent she was supposed to be. I liked that she was a very confident and incredibly smart heroine but this flip-flopping on her partner kind of undermined that.
I also didn't really like Zo either. He's really not in the book that much so he wasn't a big issue but I never really got a sense of what he wanted from Banner and there is a whole thing about "competing" with Jared to "win" Banner and I just don't love that sort of language.

As far as plot goes, there is a lot less plot compared to the first book and it's really loaded into the very beginning and the very end of the book. Generally, I enjoyed where this story went but it also dragged a bit for me in the middle. There is a good bit happening at the end of this book but by that point I was so fed up with the characters that I really didn't care. Zo ends up getting really sick and almost dying and Banner takes care of him. At the same time Banner's mother finds out she's not with Zo anymore and calls her a whore. This really came out of left field for me. I knew she had a tense relationship with her mom but this interaction makes it seem like her mom cares about Zo more than she cares about Banner, which was surprising to me. I would have liked to see a bit more sports agenting. For a book about two agents, there's really just not a lot going on with that aspect of the characters.

Also, just as a note, there is a lot of diet talk in this book that I wasn't expecting. Banner is a heavier heroine and works a lot on losing weight after college and changing her relationship with food. I would have really preferred if this aspect of the book had focused on Banner changing her relationship with food rather than explicit talk of dieting. There a lot of discussion of not eating food that will add too many "points" on Weight Watchers and how many calories food has and what foods Banner shouldn't eat. A lot of people diet and so I imagine some people might relate to this aspect but really all this calories counting really set off my own disordered eating feelings. I especially didn't like this given that the evidence is quite clear at this point when it comes to dieting. Very few people who diet lose weight and most people gain back the weight they loss plus even more weight, which is even more unhealthy. The best thing you can do for your health is eat regular, nutrient-rich, balanced meals and exercise. Exercise may not help you lose weight but it is one of the best things you can do to be healthier, second only to quitting smoking. I know not everyone will be bothered by this but I wanted to make a note of this in case anyone else is bothered by this sort of diet language.

I think at some point I'll read the next book in this series. I still loved the writing and since my issue is with the characters, I don't think that will be an issue next time. I have noticed, now that I'm on my third Kennedy Ryan book, that her heroes aren't really my favorite but I like them well enough to keep reading. ( )