I Read Common Goal, And I May Have To Murder Kyle For My Own Peace Of Mind

This book was so boring that I genuinely forgot to review it, and then forgot that I'd forgotten! I was actually about to review Role Model (which is MUCH better!), but I wanted to revisit my reviews of the earlier books in the series first, to see if there were any commonalities. I was so confused about why I couldn't find my review for Common Goal, lol! 

Anyway, if you don't want spoilers for the most boring gay hockey smut that ever gay hockey smutted, then instead of continuing to read this, go read Common Goal for yourself. And then lie down for a looooong time, because Kyle is exhausting!

Common Goal by Rachel Reid
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first thing you need to know is that the book’s blurb describes our hockey player, Eric, as a silver fox, but the book’s graphic shows him with a pretty standard brown flow. I don’t remember what his physical description in the actual book is, but in my head he’s somewhere in the middle. I guess we’ll have to wait for Season 2 of Heated Rivalry to see if we get any more opinions!

The second thing you need to know is that Eric’s house party scene gives me SO much second-hand anxiety! Kyle shows up, and this is totally fine and normal. But he shows up with a bunch of mocktail mixer crap that he wants to use to make Eric a custom mocktail. In Eric’s own kitchen. During a party Eric is trying to host. DUDE! Eric did not plan for you to be playing bartender when he was buying the ice for this party! He did not plan for this while he was cleaning his kitchen! And THEN Kyle actually makes this mocktail in, like, a secondary kitchen? So they’re the only people there and it’s not where the actual party is happening? I would just plain die and send myself to Hell if I thought I was somehow monopolizing the host of a house party in some separate room away from the rest of his party! Like, Kyle. ERIC IS TRYING TO HOST A PARTY. IT IS NOT UNREASONABLE TO THINK THAT HE MIGHT LIKE TO BE IN THE LOCATION OF HIS OWN LITERAL PARTY. THAT HE IS LITERALLY TRYING TO HOST.

So then Kyle makes Eric his custom mocktail, and okay, fine, it’s delicious. Whatever. But THEN he’s all, “Lmk when you want another and I’ll make you one!” So okay, let me get this straight. Eric now is obligated to drink a drink he didn’t know he was going to drink, and then he’s going to have to ASK Kyle to make him another. Like, Kyle didn’t even offer this as a whole party thing? He’s not just going to set himself up to make everyone the mocktail so it’s a proper activity? It’s… just for Eric? And Eric has to remember to ask for another, obviously, or Kyle might be disappointed that he didn’t love it. And he can’t let Kyle be disappointed--Kyle is a GUEST!!! Is asking for one more mocktail enough to be polite, or does he have to ask for a third? Three mocktails is kind of a lot of mocktails! I’m exhausted. This is exhausting behavior. Kyle is EXHAUSTING.

And as if that is not enough, you guys, at the end of the party, Kyle. Does. Not. Leave. Eric low-key, sideways hints at him to leave several times, and Kyle just. Does. Not. Eric genuinely does everything but TELL Kyle to leave, but Kyle absolutely will not leave! He ends up spending the night, he doesn’t leave so hard! I don’t even care that it all works out in the end and they’re in love--I am mortified by this behavior.

Eric’s apparently into it, though, so off we go! I don’t really feel one way or another about the age gap romance trope. However, I DO kind of feel a certain way about Kyle’s retelling of his very first age gap romance--are we supposed to feel like he’s focused on older men because he hasn’t processed the trauma of being groomed by his boss?!? Because that is a Whole Thing, if so. Not that I’m not there for it or anything! I was just surprised!

But ultimately, even though both Eric and Kyle profess to be interested specifically in an age gap romance, and both fantasize about it separately, they don’t really actualize any aspects of it in their actual romance. Eric fantasizes about “spoiling” Kyle, but he never really does. Kyle fantasizes about being “irresistable” to his older partner, such that they’d do anything to please him, but they never really act out this scenario together, either. Instead, they just kind of have normal--though excessive!--sex. They’re both pretty focused on edging, which honestly makes sense for Eric (less for Kyle), but otherwise they’re just a couple of normal dudes dating normal dudes.

The relationship angst is meant to come from both men secretly wanting to have a relationship, but neither man admitting it while they continue to act like friends with benefits. Maybe this is just me being unfamiliar with queer culture, but Bro. Is it really THAT hard to tell a sexual partner that you’ve caught feelings? Like, I get that it’s probably embarrassing and you’re upset that they might stop wanting to have sex with you, but Bro. Come on. Or was this maybe meant to be the relationship version of edging? That could be cool as a through-line, but I think we’d have needed some more hints at it for it to work.

I was surprised that none of this hidden turmoil really showed itself in the sex scenes. One of my favorite parts of Heated Rivalry is that you can see how Shane and Ilya are falling in love against their will by how they behave during their sex scenes, because although they both think they’re hiding it, they actually can’t. It’s cute and sweet and there would definitely have been room for it in this book, too. Like maybe they each simultaneously find themselves acting out that fantasy they’d both expressed, and then they have Big Feelings about it. Just… SOMETHING! If nothing else, it would have given them something to talk about!

I’ve felt like that about a couple of the books. Obviously Shane and Ilya have a ton to talk about, although another one of my favorite parts of Heated Rivalry is how it takes them about six years to realize it. Fabian and Ryan were kids together, so even though they have very different interests now that’s still plenty to build on. Troy and Harris work together. But I do not know what on earth Scott and Kip have to talk about (and that scene in which Kip is trying to talk to Scott about something he’s interested in and Scott shuts him down because he doesn’t care STILL pisses me off!), and I do not know what on earth Eric and Kyle have to talk about. Good thing that Eric and Scott are friends, and Kyle and Kip are friends. They can survive off of double dates!

Honestly, though? I give them eight months.

Game Changer Reviews:

1. Game Changer
2. Heated Rivalry
3. Tough Guy
4. Common Goal
5. Role Model (coming next week!)

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Would You Like Me To Sew You A Word? Because I Have Alphabet Quilt Block Patterns Now and I Am Unstoppable.

Spelling Bee by Lori Holt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have long wanted a good alphabet quilt block pattern, mostly for monogramming and personalizing things, but I don’t want to learn foundation paper piecing (yet! I’m sure the day is coming!), and the online patterns that I’ve tried work, but they’re usually sort of blocky and/or the sizing is uneven, etc.

This book is genuinely exactly what I wanted.

The letter blocks in two sizes, 6” and 12”, are perfect--although, fine, I would also like them in 20” so that I can monogram giant pillows, but I understand the scale of that would quickly become maniacal. And I’m just saying that if the author also handed patterns for 4” blocks to me I wouldn’t say no, but on the whole I can do pretty much anything I want to do with 6 inches and 12 inches.

I had no issue piecing this percent sign block and assembling my table runner, but for some reason last night I became absolutely consumed with the idea that I'd put it in sideways, so the diagonal went the wrong way and the circles were on the wrong sides. They are NOT, the block is perfect, but I will absolutely check 14 more times and then Google it to double-check and then worry that Google is wrong and I don't know what I'm supposed to do about that but just give up, I guess. 

This is the direction a percent sign goes, right?

RIGHT?!?

I sometimes have a hard time paying attention to pattern instructions, because I’d rather just get the gist and then go off on my own and likely as not mess stuff up, but fortunately the instructions for each letter block are actually quite short, so even I could generally manage to follow them. I only had to seam rip a couple of things in my most recent project, and that was only because I was paying attention to hockey on TV and not what I was doing. The Boston Fleet are having an AWESOME season!

Seriously, though--this IS how a percent sign goes, right?

I would have liked some guidance on sashing widths that would make proper spacing between letters and words (although honestly, it’s probably in there and I just wasn’t paying attention), and on good border widths, but with a little trial and error I figured out that a 1” piece (.5” finished) is perfect between letters--

and I used 2.5” (2” finished) between words. I want to make multiple lines of text in my next project, so I’m thinking 2.5” again just to make the cutting more efficient. But maybe I should do 2”?

I’ll probably double-check the book before I decide, ahem.

Moveable alphabets are things, like Base 10 blocks, number patterns, and rainbow order, that please me greatly--they're just so organized and satisfying!--and I always like finding new ways to manipulate them. I still dream fondly of that wool felt moveable alphabet that I sewed for my young niece one Christmas--all the letters! All the colors! You could spell words with the letters! And the words would be different colors! So you will understand completely when I tell you that I am VERY excited to make a wall quilt that has my favorite Wilbur Wright quote on it. 

And then maybe a set of couch pillows with all the family's monograms.

Oh, and would the younger kid and her roommates next year like to have matching monogrammed throw pillows for their beds? The kid actually LOATHES it when I craft for her friends, because apparently nobody's else's parents put random hand-sewn gifts for strangers in their child's care packages and being unlike others is apparently something that we are meant to care about now and also a sign that I "do too much," but surely she'd come around for matching monogrammed throw pillows! And maybe just one singular bunting with their college name on it for their common room? And then maybe little quilted hangings with each of their names on it for their bedroom doors?

Okay, fine, yes, I DO hear myself here, and I do see where possibly just very potentially that "doing too much" accusation is perhaps coming from.

Sooo... just the throw pillows and the bunting, then?

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In Which Queer Fantasy Hockey Smut Is Way Better Than The Real Toxic Masculinity Of The Actual NHL

Not to be all gender essentialist or anything, but I swear to god there is nothing like a man for screwing up a good thing.

I have just come down from a blissful few weeks, an absolute fever dream of hockey fandom. I don't know if you're tuned into hockey media, but the Heated Rivalry TV show has had been AWESOME for hockey lovers! It genuinely turned actual hockey from a sport that people followed into a proper fandom. It just honestly felt so cheerful and wholesome, with my social media full of cute hockey fan edits and Capcuts and memes and craft projects and funny discussions. 

And then the Olympics started, and it got even better! We're talking all that, plus 2+ hockey games a day to watch, PLUS all the extra wholesome, cheerful cuteness that comes specifically from the Olympics. I subscribe to the admittedly idealized notion that the Olympics is meant to celebrate sportsmanship as much as athleticism, and it was really cool to see the PWHL and NHL players dispersed throughout the various countries' teams, as well as the USA and Canada teams consisting of pro players from all the different PWHL and NHL teams. 

It has to have been THE best time to have been a hockey fan.

And now it sucks, so thanks, Trump.

And like, I'm not stupid. I know the NHL has a huge toxic masculinity problem, that it's historically misogynistic and homophobic and racist. But I'd ABSOLUTELY thought that history was on my side, and that every year it was trending just a little more towards actual diversity and acceptance, towards You Can Play and Hockey is for Everyone, etc. Like, surely the NHL wants more fans--or at least their money--and if becoming more diverse and less toxic was clearly the key to that, then clearly they would jump on it. With this active fan culture of late, female-forward and diverse and queer and having a lot of fun, it was really feeling like we were on the cusp of some kind of revolution. 

But obviously we weren't, because the NHL and most of the players in it are actively rich boy right-wing misogynistic MAGA bullies who think it's funny to laugh at the expense of the USA Women's Hockey Team, who objectively did better than them in the Olympics, by the way, and then not apologize, and then act like people are overreacting when they're mad about it.

Whatever. They came out of the whole thing looking stupid, they clearly don't actually want me as a fan, or care about my little bit of fan-money I was spending on them, and now I'm gonna watch the PWHL instead.

My NHL dysphoria is so bad right now that if I'd written this review of Tough Guy last week, I'd probably have given it two stars, because it's not that good, but today? Ryan and Fabian are getting four stars from me, just for the pleasure they bring by living in a world in which there are multiple openly gay professional male hockey players. 

The fact that Fabian is portrayed as a kind of Violin Ed Sheeran and it's so corny? Don't care anymore. Love him.

The crazy height difference descriptions, including the time that Fabian and Ryan are dancing and we learn that Ryan's belt buckle is bumping into Fabian's RIB CAGE, and also I can't look it up because I listened to the audio version but I swear there's a time that Fabian STANDS ON A LITERAL CHAIR and is about Ryan's height? Completely realistic. No notes.

I did genuinely love the interesting way that this relationship threaded the needle between Game Changer's insta love and Heated Rivalry's eight-year situationship. Having Fabian and Ryan as childhood friends who'd lost contact did allow for some elements of insta love that got to feel realistic, because we know that they've done all that boring getting to know you work off-screen, and now we get to focus on how they build this emotional connection, the cute dates and waffle brunches with Fabian's friends, etc. I was not at all into the physical chemistry between Fabian and Ryan, but that's okay, I guess, because they're into each other.

I *was* pretty into the premise that Ryan is an enforcer, because the NHL doesn't have those anymore (John Scott did the BEST job at the 2016 All-Star Game, and also kinda caused the long-overdue dismantling of the enforcer position as a whole because the NHL was just that butthurt about how genuinely wonderful he was). I feel like the premise that Ryan hates being an enforcer is also earned (see also: John Scott), with his goal being the most heartwarming part of the book, but imo Fabian made waaaay too much out of watching Ryan's hockey fight highlight reel. Like, it's not a dogfight or cockfight or baby bunny fight or whatever--they're grown men! They're fine!

Also, mental note that when you've got a crush on an artist, the romantic thing to do is to PURCHASE all their music to binge. Ryan is too sweet to pirate music like everyone else, and I love that for him. Or he's just too rich, but whatever. I'll take it, as long as he's supporting small artists.

Random notes:

• My genuinely favorite part of the book is when Ryan refers to his body as "an old, weathered barn." It's evocative, and surprisingly poetic.
• My favorite character in this series so far is Wyatt. Love a backup goalie, especially one that logs a ton of volunteer hours!
• My current favorite part of all the non-Heated Rivalry books I've read in this series so far is when Ilya makes his Gay Fairy Hockey Godfather cameo. It's so random and funny, and honestly kind of out of character, but I don't care, because it's Ilya!

Predictions for future books:

• At some point, Shane and Ilya will collect the full set of queer male pro hockey players--plus Wyatt! And maybe Hayden!--for their hockey charity. 
• I've been spoiled a little bit for The Long Game, just enough that I don't have DIYing a Voyageurs jersey on my to-do list, and now that Wyatt is also a Centaur I think they should also collect all the queer male pro hockey players--other than Scott Hunter, I guess, who is currently being smug and perfect and happy in Common Goal--for Ottawa. It would be even better if Ryan came out of retirement, since it seems like he actually does like hockey when he gets to properly play, or he could coach and that might be even cuter.
• And then if they DO manage to collect all the queer male pro hockey players, obviously they must win the Cup!

In conclusion, I still want to DIY Shane's Team Canada sherpa, and a Boston Bears sweater with "Rosanov" on the back, but thank GAWD that I did not pull the trigger on the "Quinn Hughes Surrounded by Ghosts" cross-stitch pattern I was eyeing. I'm not saying I'm never watching NHL hockey again, because Sidney Crosby has yet to disappoint me, but that league as a whole is in my personal penalty box for at least the rest of this season while I develop my far more appropriate and non-problematic crush on Hilary Knight.

Go, Torrent!

Game Changer Reviews:

1. Game Changer
2. Heated Rivalry
3. Tough Guy
4. Common Goal (I'm reading this right now!)

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I Can Now Cook Eight Things, But Two Of Them Are Just Different Kinds Of Cookies

Chocolate Build-a-Base Cookie Cake, with cream cheese frosting and fruit

All About Cookies: A Milk Bar Baking Book by Christina Tosi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am currently the world’s most medium-low okay-ish cook, but this is the year that I’ve committed to learning how to cook better. Or, if not objectively better, maybe just more than six things that come out decent most of the time?

Cocoa Mint Chip Cookies, specifically the batch where I used up all the leftover Christmas candy!

And so far, I seem to have decided to do that by checking out library cookbooks that sound good and attempting to cook from them. It’s going… okay? I honestly tend to do better with children’s cookbooks, because they explain everything to me like I’m five, which I definitely need, and because they don’t include a lot of fussy elements, which I’m struggling to have the patience for.

The pecans in this cookie cake were also leftover from Christmas...

To be fair, though: to me, fussy more or less means anything that requires more from me than simply dumping in all the ingredients at once, stirring them together, and hoping for the best. I also have a really bad habit of switching up ingredients for no good reason other than that I want to use up something in my pantry, but at least whenever I do that I don’t blame the recipe **cough, cough** https://www.reddit.com/r/ididnthaveeggs/ **cough**.

So the major benefits of this cookbook for me are that 1) everything is explained in a lot of detail so I understand what I’m supposed to do, and 2) all the recipes that I tried are almost quick and easy enough that I mostly followed them like I was supposed to, which means that all the cookies came out really delicious!

The best recipe is for these amazingly delicious Cocoa Mint Chip Cookies. I absolutely burned them the first two times I made them, because they’re dark so I couldn’t tell when they’d browned and I wasn’t sure what consistency they were supposed to be, but they were delicious anyway. Just… crispy delicious! I have also never made them exactly the way the recipe says to, because I keep wanting to do other stuff instead. I added in the peppermint chips, which are spendy as HELL but very good, but instead of proper chocolate chips I have used, in various combinations, 1) chopped Hershey bars, 2) crushed candy canes, 3) m&ms, and 4) white chocolate chips. This is a great recipe for using up the leftover Christmas candy!

Crushed candy canes were VERY good in this!

My favorite part of all these recipes is how well everything freezes. I’ve had really mixed results trying to freeze food, or rather, trying to cook it again from frozen, with my most devastating failure being my former favorite peanut butter cookie recipe. Side note: if you’ve got a super basic peanut butter cookie recipe that cooks from frozen without turning into a weird puddle of oily peanut butter, let me know! But I ALSO don’t need to eat a full-on batch of cookies within a day. I really miss having teenagers at home, sigh. But I feel like I am living the life I was meant to live when I can take two cookies out of the freezer and bake them to enjoy over a crossword puzzle. And when a neighbor offered to bring over his tractor one snowy day and plow my driveway, and I had just enough time to pull a dozen cookies out of the freezer and bake them for him before he came back, I was all, “Ah, this is what it is to be competent!”

Not a single one of these fruits was actually in season for Valentine's Day, so none of them were very sweet. Thank goodness for all that added sugar!

I also had success freezing the Chocolate Build-a-Base Cookie, with crushed pecans mixed in, after it was baked so that when I wanted to have fruit pizza for Valentine’s Day I didn’t also have bake the cookie cake that day. Like, is this what adult life is meant to feel like? I have literally nothing else going for me at the moment, but I do have cookies in the freezer ready to bake!

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In Which I Am Completely Normal About This AU Captain America Fanfic Turned Gay Hockey Smut Book Series

Game Changer by Rachel Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Did I like the romance plot?

No.

Did I enjoy the sex scenes?

Also no.

Am I nevertheless rating this 5 stars?

Absolutely yes!

Finally, I have found a hockey book series in which the protagonists actually play hockey!

Scott and Kip have your stereotypically cringey insta-love meet-cute, and their relationship progresses equally unrealistically--I think Scott beat out all the lesbians with how soon he brought out the metaphorical U-Haul. I also LOATHE the voices that this audiobook’s narrator chose for each guy; he literally should have switched them? Or just chosen ANYTHING besides cartoon “Brooklyn” meat-head who can’t pronounce r’s or t’s. I had to have a genuine serious talk with myself by the end of chapter 2 to see if I could even make it through this audiobook as-is. I only managed by pretending that these were real people, because obviously you can’t hate someone’s actual real voice. Or, you know, you can, but only silently inside your own head and outside your head you just have to deal with it. Also, Kip clearly has a very big speech impediment and it would be very wrong to hate him for it.

@hillarynorwood #heatedrivalry #gamechanger #kipandscott ♬ original sound - BGuy

I also hated that even though our rich and famous the man, the myth, the legend Scott Hunter insta-fell in love with a poor, it’s clear that Kip is a virtuous poor--and therefore deserving of love from a rich-and-famous--because he’s too proud to let Scott pay for things. Like, bro, we get it. You’re not a whore, and your love can’t be bought. But also, you work in a smoothie shop? And your boyfriend is a millionaire? Just let him pay off your student loans, which are a predatory scam designed to keep you poor, anyway!

Other than Kip’s moaning about not wanting to take Scott’s money, Kip has such a bad time for the majority of this book that I felt terrible for him. Scott Hunter was an asshole for almost this entire book. He took that beautiful social butterfly of a man and turned him into his dirty little secret, isolating him up inside his empty penthouse, making him feel uncomfortable talking to his own parents, much less all his friends, because he felt he had to maintain his boyfriend’s closet, and generally making him more miserable for the majority of the book than when he was still living at home with his parents and working a dead-end low-wage job. That scene in which his best friend, the only person Scott has allowed him to tell about their relationship, says she’s moving across the country, and when Kip tries to tell Scott about it he couldn’t be less interested or more irritated, got me in the gut. Poor Kip! What Scott should have done was leave that beautiful man alone, get a bunch of therapy from a licensed professional, come out properly, and then ask Kip out when he could finally deserve him. But some guys just have all the luck, and I guess it turned out fine in the end.

My first favorite thing about this book is how Scott actually plays hockey in it, and we get some mid-game drama, a couple of fights, gossip about players on other teams, trade deadline stress, dealing with the rookies, etc., but my second favorite thing about this book is, as in Heated Rivalry (which I read out of order), the real Big Bad is 1) toxic masculinity, closely followed by 2) the NHL as a whole (see: toxic masculinity). And I do think that Reid’s version of how the first openly gay player in the NHL comes out is just about the only realistic scenario. She starts with a remarkably empathetic and close-knit team, as evidenced by the removal of the team’s big jerk early on, and she makes the closeted gay player the team’s long-time and very beloved captain. He also has to be one of the best players in the league, and closer to retirement than not so he’s got a legacy of greatness and a terrific reputation. And although Hunter planned to come out at the end of the season regardless, it’s very important that it happens right after winning the Stanley Cup, just so nobody can pretend like Hunter’s sexuality affects his game or the team’s success. If any real NHL player actually wants to come out--and I really, really hope some NHL players will!--circumstances close to that would also be their best-case scenario.

I like Heated Rivalry so much better than this book that I’m wondering if it’s the fact that this is a reskinned Captain America fanfic that’s throwing it off. (Yes, it is. YES, IT IS!). Like, you can have some amazing writing in fanfic (see: All the Young Dudes), but it’s very, very different in most cases from a “proper” book, and every book I’ve read knowing that it’s a reskinned fanfic I think has suffered from it. In this specific case, there's some backstory that it's easy to gloss over in a Captain America fic, because we already know that Steve's mother died when he was young, for instance, so you don't really need to build all the ways that affects him into his character yourself, because your readers already know it's there. But when you reskin the brief paragraph in which Steve Rogers mentions his mother's death into one in which Scott Hunter does, you've got the same backstory beat, but you DON'T automatically get the same understanding of all the ways that affects him, because Scott Hunter's backstory isn't part of the cultural canon the way Steve Roger's is. I think Reid could have done a lot more to make Scott Hunter a more sympathetic and realistic character by showing how his isolation and lack of family has led to some of his problematics behaviors towards Kip, especially, but I wonder if he was always Steve Rogers in her head, and so she didn't notice that she needed to. In contrast, I think she handled Ilya's emotionally complicated backstory in Heated Rivalry very adeptly, and I can even see some places where I think she's foreshadowing some more things for Ilya and Shane in her later books, so she's very capable of writing a full character when she's not having to wade through a whole other IP to get there.

Maybe the lesson is to keep the concept, keep the plot, but otherwise just pretend like you’re writing a brand-new story and start it from scratch.

Other than the characters of Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov, that is. Those two should obviously be characters in EVERY book.

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I Have Discovered Gay Hockey Smut

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I apparently started reading in the wrong order, because I was actually supposed to read Game Changer first, but whatever.

I’m actually more mad that I’ve been loudly cheering for hockey and reading smut for YEARS, and nobody has loved me enough to tell me that this entire book series of genuine hockey smut--bonus points: GAY hockey smut!--even exists! I had to rely on TIKTOK to clue me in, so I guess my parasocial relationship with TikTok has officially reached the next level. Thank you, TikTok, for knowing what I like before I know it myself! I checked this out of the library as an audiobook, and spent much of December plopping myself down with a big armful of cross-stitching next to my husband as soon as he fired up his Playstation and turning this on "so we could listen together." At first he was mortified, but it didn't take long before he was as in the weeds as I was with Shane and Ilya, and now I'm very much looking forward to watching the TV series together. Breaking down those gender essentialist stereotypes one tropey romance at a time!

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My two favorite things about Heated Rivalry are that 1) it has a genuine plot, and isn’t just a bunch of sex scenes pasted together with mildly plotty paragraphs in between them, and 2) there is actual hockey contained within. Not, like, a ton of actual hockey, because even I understand that, given the extended timeframe of the book, full play-by-plays of every game our heroes played during that time would be too much (but if someone wanted to make some fan videos attempting it, I’d watch them!), but enough to flesh the characters out as actual hockey players, and enough to make the game of hockey an actual part of the book. Because my personal belief is that, if you’re reading a hockey romance, you want to read romance and YOU WANT TO READ HOCKEY, and I will never understand how a self-proclaimed hockey romance (*cough, cough* Icebreaker *cough*) can manage to have absolute zero hockey therein.

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Since I am now apparently one of the Old Ones, and have been known to regale my fourth-wave daughters with stories about the bad old days when everyone was in the closet and being queer felt so fraught, one of the things that interests me the most about Heated Rivalry is how, by choosing a setting of male professional sports, the book is able to harken back to those bad old days and the experience of feeling actively in danger simply because of one’s sexual identity. Like, yes, I know homophobia is still out there (though not really in the circles in which my own kids run, hence why I feel the need to regularly trauma dump some lived experience truth bombs on them), but only in male professional sports does it really feel Brokeback Mountain-level these days. So setting the book series in the world of the NHL is a great way to access those Brokeback Mountain-levels of angst again, albeit with, at least in Heated Rivalry, a happy-ish ending.

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And of course, since I’ve also been bitching about this issue for years, finding out that in Heated Rivalry the REAL Big Bad is the NHL itself is right up my alley. Bring back Pride jerseys, you buncha assholes! I swear the administration’s bullshit toxic masculinity is so out of touch with their fan base that it’s ridiculous. Like, they genuinely thought that their fans would overlook the fact that the Golden Knights’ entirely mid goalie is a rapist?!? Just the fact that there are no out NHL players should make the administration realize that something about its playing environment is very, very wrong and they ought to treat that like the mental health crisis that it surely is. But nope! We’ve apparently just got to be hockey fans as best we can while they actively act like they’re playing in 1950, not 2025.

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I did think that the book was making too big a meal out of the “rivalry” part of Heated Rivalry. Yes, you can easily convince me that the gay part is an issue, because hey, toxically masculine NHL, but the rivalry? Um, lots of players have good friends from different teams? How could they not, when players get traded so often? And when there are regular goodwill events like All-Star Weekend and the Olympics? I just didn’t buy it as an issue, and every time a character tried to act like it was an issue it fell flat for me. Shane and Ilya had all the reasons in the world to be best buddies right from the start, AND it would have made their years-long situationship soooo much easier. Like, why wouldn’t they be friends, as top young players and top draftees and with so much in common? If they couldn’t figure out how to make it happen before, then the All-Star Weekend during which they were finally on the same team should have been the time! They publicly realize that they actually get along great! They make no secret of exchanging numbers! Whenever they play each other ever afterwards, they make a point of chatting during warm-ups, during which the announcers will fall all over themselves to say, “That’s what sportsmanship is all about, y’all.” They could even do the cute thing where their teams start fighting and one of them skates over, grabs the other by the scruff of their jersey, and skates them away from the scrum. The fans LOVE that stuff! And then after the game, their teammates are all, “Hey, you coming out with us?”, and each of them replies, “Nah, I’m hanging with Shane/Ilya tonight,” and that’s that.

Anyway, now onto Game Changer!

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Shall I Cross-Stitch You a Bookmark? Because I I Can Cross-Stitch Bookmarks Now!

These bookmarks are going into the kids' Valentine's Day care packages. Each one matches its recipient's school color!

Lit Stitch: 25 Cross-Stitch Patterns for Book Lovers by Book Riot
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The thing about cross-stitch that I’m still not sure about is its focus on decoration. I mostly sew, and any sewing book, even one confined to quilting, will always have a variety of projects, some decorative, but most useful in some way. You’ll get instructions for the odd wall hanging, sure, but you’ll also get pillow covers and zippered bags and pot holders and clothing items and everything else practical and impractical under the sun. So I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that a cross-stitch book seems to generally just show you the actual cross-stitch pattern, and it’s up to you to figure out what to do with it. I feel like you absolutely CAN do a ton of things with a finished cross-stitch, especially something like those pillow covers and zippered bags, maybe even ornaments and patches and embellishments, but it adds more mental work to the process, especially when all I want to do when I see a pattern I like is to literally just stitch it, not try to imagine what its actual purpose in my life will be.

So that’s part of the reason why I ended up stitching multiples of the BOOKS! bookmark pattern. For one thing, I really like the font. And for another, I know what to do with a bookmark!

I didn’t love the book’s instructions for finishing the bookmark, but tbh I didn’t love the way I decided to finish the bookmarks, either. The two bookmarks that I stitched onto Aida I backed with felt and blanket stitched with embroidery floss around the perimeter. The bookmark that I stitched onto burlap I backstitched to the felt and frayed the excess. Neither method looked as tidy as I wanted it to, especially compared to how precise cross-stitching looks to the eye. So if you’ve got a sure-fire, go-to way to finish a cross-stitch bookmark, please let me know!

Backed with felt and midway through its blanket-stitching. I feel like the knots are SO visible!

I loved the font used for the BOOKS! bookmark so much that I was super bummed to see that the book does not contain a complete alphabet in that font. I feel like every craft book that contains a word art project should have to also publish a full alphabet in that font, just in case you like it so much you want to make your own words with it… which in this case I did! Fortunately, with graph paper and plenty of erasing, I did figure out how to make the other letters I needed look like the BOOKS! font. The “A” is maybe a little wonky, but whatever.

Despite the wonky knots, I am so pleased with how this bookmark turned out! I drew F, I, and A patterns to match the font, calculated how to divide seven colors by five letters, and matched the rainbow in the blanket-stitching. I then mailed it to my niece in a box also containing two Eyewitness books and two size 6 T-shirts... and the USPS lost it. I'm waiting to hear from you, Mail Recovery Center!

After reading this book, here are the things that I now know how to do:
* Figure out how many strands of floss to use, within a limited range. I can definitely now eyeball when I need two strands vs. three strands, at least.
* Substitute colors. When I had the revelation that I did not have to purchase the exact color of DMC floss the pattern calls for if I have a similar color already in my stash, it BLEW MY MIND, lol.

Things that I still do not know how to do:
* Figure out what size the project will be. Should I count all the little squares on the pattern and then count all the little squares on my fabric? Measure the number of squares per inch and multiply?
* Finish a project. Do I bind the edges or anything? Glue them? Put it in a frame or something? The blanket stitching that I used to finish two of my bookmarks was particularly irritating to me, since I couldn’t find an invisible, or even tidy-looking, way to knot the ends of the floss. So all my knots are basically either the biggest, most visible knots ever created… or already falling out. Sigh!

In related news, I both own more bookmarks than I’ll ever need in this lifetime and am obsessed with how quickly cross-stitch bookmarks stitch up and how cute they are. Raise your hand if you want me to cross-stitch you a bookmark, I guess!

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