Nothing extraordinary. Friends to enemies to lovers (to something I can't tell you, because SPOILER!), with a generous helping of the forced proximity trope.

Hiding the trigger warnings is okay (I guess…?), but still, some things should be mentioned. There’s homophobia and toxic masculinity galore here, as well as a brief het sex scene — all of it during the first 50% — and it made me consider DNFing the book many, many times… If that’s a deal breaker for you, don’t even start this one. There’s a truly disturbing amount of throat-grabbing as well (also during the first half of the book), but I digress.

Around the halfway mark all of that changes, though, when the asshole MC gets in touch with his “true self” or some shit after one of those triggering events the author doesn’t warn us about. Not immediately after, mind you. He’s a mean SOB for some time after that, too. I’m tempted to say some things about the other MC, because I had real issues with his way-too-accepting attitude, but that would be spoilery, so I won’t. Anyway, I liked the second half more, except for that melodrama near the end. Soap opera-level, I'm telling you. So frustrating.

Now, the writing. I did not enjoy it. There were some truly ridiculous turns of phrase, as if the author wanted to show off her skill. It’s written in dual first person POV, and college guys — football players at that — using lofty (and often mixed) metaphors, both in dialogue and in their own heads, is dubious at best, and has a strong WTF effect (at least on me) at worst. There’s also a lot of really uninspired cursing. Some typos (that’s nothing too serious compared to the rest), misspelled homophones (I hate those with a passion!!), wrong use of phrasals… My inner grammar Nazi was this close to having a conniption. Seriously, the book could use a good — or even average — editor.

2.5 stars rounded down. ( )