Cleat Cute

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While I enjoyed the plot and premise of this sapphic sports romance, the writing let me down. The whole story was told in third person and had a crazy amount of internal monologue that was often repetitive and left me wanting more. Because of the writing, I had a hard time connecting with the characters and struggled to immerse myself in their relationship. Despite that, I loved learning about soccer and the found family vibes from the team! While this book may not be for me, I definitely see the potential and think Cleat Cute would work very well for someone who likes third person and internal monologue.

A sapphic rivals to lovers rom com for fans of Ted Lasso and A League of Their Own , where two soccer teammates are at odds before falling in love as their team gears up for the World Cup. How many blues in this bag?” she asks her brother, Teddy, who always times his break at the front desk for when Phoebe is between personal training clients. all in all at the end of the day there doesnt seem to be an actual plot to this book, its more bad fan fiction than anything? there is no actual rivalry whatsoever unless you count grace just having impenetrable walls of trust issues as rivalry? they almost immediately become FWB with each other, which when the main characters are actually rivals and hate each other can be extremely hot but this was not the case here unfortunately.

Moving from Idaho to New Orleans will be a big change for Phoebe, but she knows she can make it work.

Well, that was certainly a choice both my decision to continue listening to this book despite not liking it and the decision to write the book at all. I mean really? Can you really consider a book rivals to lovers if the characters are on the same team and they're not rivals at any point in the entire book? They're not even enemies? Hell they don't even dislike each other. In what world does this classify as a rivals to lovers? Grace Henderson has been a star of the US Women’s National Team for ten years, even though she’s only 26. But when she’s sidelined with an injury, a bold new upstart, Phoebe Matthews, takes her spot. 22-year-old Phoebe is everything Grace isn’t��a gregarious jokester who plays with a joy that Grace lost somewhere along the way. The last thing Grace expects is to become teammates with benefits with this class clown she sees as her rival. It’s because it’s an equal bet,” Phoebe says, then admits, “Or, well, it can be because of two things.” It’s better than Teddy’s usual bet, though, which is to make Phoebe wash his binder. He always waits until after working out to collect, the asshole.

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Phoebe and Grace both present as neurodivergent, but when the topics are talked about, Phoebe reacts with anger and a seemingly internalized stigma against neurodivergence/ADHD. When Grace tries to help her, she turns to tiktok of all places for information on ADHD. Please, y’all, don’t self-diagnose on tiktok. Readers who already know something about soccer will be swept up in the descriptions of intense gameplay and strategy, as well as the behind-the-scenes politics of leadership roles and coaching decisions." Still, she’d take him with if she could. Her only reservation about heading to Louisiana at the end of the month is how far she’ll be from her family. College was one thing—Mapleton was close enough to bring her laundry home. Moving to NOLA will be her first time living outside of Indiana in her twenty-two years.

The miscommunication was also quite annoying. It seemed like anytime something serious came up they would have sex instead. Things would have been a lot smoother for both of them had they taken a few minutes and just talked rather than always jumping into bed. Wilsner understands the world of queer and lesbian culture, particularly online fan culture, and it shows. When Grace is trying to better understand ADHD so she can talk with Phoebe about it, she goes on ADHD TikTok. Phoebe references Grace’s thirsty online fandom, discussing a thread on the L Chat about a suit she wore to the ESPYs ( also true to life ). IRL superstars like Abby Wambach and Briana Scurry come up a few times, though the focus is on these fictional characters and their team. Grace Henderson has been a star of the US Women’s National Team for ten years, even though she’s only 26. But when she’s sidelined with an injury, a bold new upstart, Phoebe Matthews, takes her spot. Phoebe is everything Grace isn’t—a gregarious jokester who plays with a joy that Grace lost somewhere along the way. The last thing Grace expects is to become friends with benefits with this class clown she sees as her rival. Even though they have this arrangement and are friends and teammates, this book is RIDDLED with miscommunication. At every possible turn, the two of them use sex to distract each other for forming a deeper connection. At one point one of them thought they were in an exclusive relationship, and the other didn’t even know 🤦🏻‍♀️ As usual, Wilsner juggles a variety of identities and life circumstances with ease, flowing them naturally into the plot and characterization of the main cast and supporting characters. The world feels well-rounded and fully descriptive. And the sex scenes--scorching, unsurprisingly, as well as touching and enlightening.

Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, which encourages fellow bloggers to spotlight upcoming releases that we’re excited about. It is a meme that I have loved participating in since I first started blogging, but as Jill is no longer actively posting, from now on I’ll be linking to Can’t Wait Wednesday, hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings, which is a spinoff of the original WoW meme. * * * * * I enjoyed the found family vibes and the team dynamics. It’s one of my favorite parts about reading sports romances. While the friends with benefits is pretty fast, the actual relationship development is pretty slow burn. All right all right all right let me set the scene. We have Phoebe Matthews who is a rookie and has just been drafted for some level of professional soccer playing. Do I understand what level? Absolutely not because they switch between code names for these different teams so many times and have so many teammates but that's a different section. Phoebe starts and she is overeager and chaotic and loud and oh yeah, she absolutely idolizes one of her teammates Grace. Grace despite only being 26 has been playing professionally for 10 years and Phoebe has a massive crush on her. Grace finds Phoebe annoying to start with but she doesn't dislike her. She respects her skills and even though she wishes she would be on time and that she would shut up every once in awhile, there's no active dislike. Even knowing that they play the same position and Phoebe could replace Grace, that's never an actual serious contender of a situation for it to qualify as a rival situation. Cleat Cute also has it all if you’re looking for diversity and representation. Wilsner always does an excellent job writing queer and poc characters, and in this book they focused a lot more on neurodivergent characters. It was refreshing to read a book that included all of these characters. I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher (thank you!) in exchange for an honest review. **