Shawna Finnigan's Reviews > The Long Game

TW// (view spoiler)[ panic attacks, mentions of bullying, mentions of death (mother and grandmother) (hide spoiler)]

I have heard nothing but good things about Elena Armas’ books, so when I got an email saying I could read this book on NetGalley, I hopped on the opportunity. The synopsis sounded really cute and I was looking forward to reading a fun romance.

However, things started to feel disappointing with this book right away. I hated Adalyn and Cameron right off the bat. They were both cocky, controlling, and honestly really insufferable. Adalyn wanted extreme control of her life and I get that she needed to be confident to maintain that control, but she still got on my nerves with how full of herself she was. Cameron was worse than Adalyn. He was controlling of the relationship and it gave me massive ick. Cameron felt like he needed to be a knight in shining armor for Adalyn instead of letting her deal with her own problems. He claimed he didn’t want to do that, but all of his actions after he started falling for her really boiled down to his need to “save” her. It got on my nerves so much, especially since I have experience with guys who think they're a knight in shining armor.

I was also getting nonstop second hand embarassment from how physical they’d get around other people. I get that they want to be physical with each other, but they’re literally working with a kids soccer team in an extremely smalltown. They’ve got to control their desires in public a little better.

Speaking of romance, this was supposed to be an enemies-to-lovers, but their whole reason for being enemies frustrated me. They were both too stubborn to admit that they could be wrong, so because of that they feuded with each other nonstop. Their first encounter was definitely awkward, but it was no reason to be enemies for so long.

I was hoping that the side characters would carry the story for me, but they didn’t at all. I found all the side characters annoying, especially Josie and the kids. It was super unrealistic, too, to have a nine year old kid give a speech like what a therapist would give. What should’ve been a powerful moment in the book turned into a cringey moment for me because it was a freaking nine year old child giving the life advice.

I hated how Elena Armas would jump from scene to scene with her writing. I’m not sure if it’s like this in her other books, but a scene would occur that seemed like it would be the start of a steamy or powerful scene… but then it would abruptly fastfoward to a new day. I desperately needed those scenes to be completely finished because I was curious about what would happen next, but most of the scenes felt incomplete from all the time jumps.

There were some loose ends in this book that frustrated me. Whatever happened with the chicken? And where’s the resolution to the energy drink drama? Plus, it’s clear that Matthew had some romantic feelings for Adalyn - why didn’t the story ever address that?

One last criticism before I dive into my two positives to this book: I hated how much “darling” and “love” were used in here. I was on the verge of ripping out my hair from annoyance at all those pet names.

On a more positive note, I found the hurt/comfort scenes to be cute. I think Cameron went a little overboard with how much he wanted to care for Adalyn, but I’d never read such intense hurt/comfort scenes in a book before so I enjoyed seeing how that trope could play out in a contemporary romance.

The only other thing I liked about the book were the cats. I loved how the cats played into the story.

As you can probably tell, I wasn’t a huge fan of this book. Unless Elena Armas’ characters and writing are drastically different in her other stories, I don’t think her books are for me. I think some people will like this book, but I just couldn’t find myself enjoying the time that I spent reading this book.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review an eArc of this book.