Review of ‘Face off’ by P.J. Trebelhorn

I was really looking forward to this read, being a huge sports fan and a lesbian fake romance book fan, but something about this novel just didn’t’ work for me.

Although this isn’t really flagged as a series, it’s really set in the same universe as Trebelhorn’s book ‘On the fly’. I’m usually a stickler for reading books in order, but I didn’t get the chance to read ‘On the fly’, and it didn’t matter one bit for my enjoyment of this story. Yes, there’s cameos and references to characters from it, but this story is a complete standalone novel all by itself.

As the blurb shows, this book features hockey player Savannah and her new next-door neighbor Maddie. For some odd reason, they decide to fake date, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around exactly why this had to be done. Yes, it is explained, but I really didn’t see the point. The relationship itself doesn’t move too fast, covering what I think I remember as around 6 months or so, but the book felt too quick. It felt like it really lacked character development and was actually way too short. This was a very quick read for me and I think that Trebelhorn should have added in more pages just for more character development because this felt lacking.

Overall, it’s not a bad book, it just left me with the feeling that it could have been so much more. 3.25 stars.

Many thanks to Bold Strokes for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.