It’s a Love/Skate Relationship coming January 28th, 2025 from HarperCollins; 320 pages
Content Warning: Foul language, verbal harassment, violence, homophobia
About the Author: “Carli J. Corson writes about girls finding love and adventure in unexpected places. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Muhlenberg College and two master’s degrees from The University of Pennsylvania. Carli resides in the Philadelphia area with her wife and their beloved fur children, Mango the orange cat and Fiona the doodle pup. In her spare time, she’s hanging out with family and friends, wrestling with jigsaw puzzles, or yelling at the TV in support of her embattled Philly sports teams” (Bio from author’s website).
Find Carli J. Corson on the following platforms:
Charlie Porter is a queer hockey player at Cranford High School. In her match against Winthrop High School, Charlie misses the winning goal, costing Cranford their winning streak and the territorial cup. An aggressive comment from a rival player triggers Charlie enough to start a brawl, ending in a figure skater’s broken ankle and a broken statue of a local legend. As punishment for starting the fight, Charlie is suspended from Cranford, forced to attend the rival school, and required to replace the statue at the skating rink. There, she meets a figure skater named Alexis who, thanks to the now-infamous fight, is down a competition partner. When she stumbles into tryouts to replace Alexis’ partner, Charlie’s athletic skills and strength impress the skater’s mom, landing her a position as a temporary partner in exchange for having her debts paid. With college in mind and a rivalry on and off the ice, Charlie has to learn to deal with a new school, a new sport, and growing feelings for her new partner.
While the idea of It’s a Love/Skate Relationship was charming and full of potential, I found the novel to be full of clichés. The first chapter was particularly difficult to get through, as the pages were overrun by copious amounts of adjectives that only served to distract the reader from the events in the story. Charlie is also a bit of what can be described as a toxic “pick-me” with a strong victim complex. While I enjoyed the LGBTQIA+ aspect of the story, I believe it could have benefitted from more of a relatable main character. On the other hand, I did appreciate the research that Corson put into the hockey and figure skating aspects. Since figure skating is a very intimate and difficult sport, I found that the training scenes deeply nurtured the relationship between Alexis and Charlie, strengthening their overall chemistry. That being said, some parts of the novel were seemingly unrealistic, specifically towards the end. The underlying Wicked themes within the story also threw me off a bit, and while it was obvious this was meant to be the “what if” version where Elphaba and Glinda fell in love, I think the author could have integrated it into the story more to remain consistent. This would have added a layer of individuality that the story seemed to lack. It’s a Love/Skate Relationship was not an impossible novel to get through, but it is not something that I would think to recommend.
It’s a Love/Skate Relationship releases on January 28th, 2025.
Pine Reads Review would like to thank SparkPoint Studio and HarperCollins for sending us an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes are taken from an advanced copy and may be subject to change before final publication.
Callie Andrews, Pine Reads Review Writer, Social Media, and Web