Book Review: Heated Rivalry and The Long Game by Rachel Reid
Of course, I’m as obsessed with Heated Rivalry as everyone else on the internet. Of course, I had to pick up the books. Of course, I’m going to spill some of my (many) thoughts on it.
Heated Rivalry (Game Changers #2) by Rachel Reid
Nothing interferes with Shane Hollander’s game—definitely not the sexy rival he loves to hate.
Pro hockey star Shane Hollander isn’t just crazy talented, he’s got a spotless reputation. Hockey is his life. Now that he’s captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, he won’t let anything jeopardize that, especially the sexy Russian whose hard body keeps him awake at night.
Boston Bears captain Ilya Rozanov is everything Shane’s not. The self-proclaimed king of the ice, he’s as cocky as he is talented. No one can beat him—except Shane. They’ve made a career on their legendary rivalry, but when the skates come off, the heat between them is undeniable. When Ilya realizes he wants more than a few secret hookups, he knows he must walk away. The risk is too great.
As their attraction intensifies, they struggle to keep their relationship out of the public eye. If the truth comes out, it could ruin them both. But when their need for each other rivals their ambition on the ice, secrecy is no longer an option…
I read Heated Rivalry after finishing either Episode 4 or 5 of the show and was waiting for the next episode, so I went into it already knowing the basics. It quickly became obvious that this is one of those rare book adaptations that I would recommend watching before reading the book. I would highly recommend watching the show – and maybe catching some of people’s analyses of the acting and directorial choices – and then reading the book. I think it’s a fascinating case where the book and the adaptation both have something to offer and deepen your experience with the other, so I do recommend both watching and reading – but in that order.
Honestly, Heated Rivalry would have been a very “mid” book to me if I’d read it on its own. I don’t have too many thoughts on the book on its own, so this portion will be shorter than for The Long Game. The writing is relatively dry and to-the-point, and Reid doesn’t add very many flourishes to her writing. The plot is largely the same across the adaptation, and the time jumps are just as confusing and hard-to-follow as it is on screen. A lot has already been said about Reid’s treatment of the characters (some more on that below), but I don’t find it as egregious in Heated Rivalry. If I’d read this prior to the show, it just wouldn’t have stuck out to me very much. It is very spicy, and I enjoyed how she built up the character arcs and how she wrote the spicy scenes, so I’m glad many moments made it onto the screen.
I think the emotional depth comes from the show more than from the books, although we do see Shane and Ilya grappling with trying to not want one another in the books. In the book, we obviously get Shane and Ilya’s inner thoughts. While the show does a pretty good job of showing the viewer these, it can feel subtle enough that it was really helpful to read the character’s thoughts in the book. (I had seen people talking about reading the book for a better understanding of the tuna melt scene, and I agree.) However, the yearning translated better on screen, whereas Reid’s writing didn’t elicit that in me as much. Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie really added layers to their characters with their acting choices, and they elevated Shane and Ilya beyond what’s presented in the books. I felt like I had a deeper understanding of the characters because of the performances from the show.
That’s why I think both mediums have a lot to offer fans of the story and each bring out different layers – you can catch more of the subtle acting and directing choices when you have a sense of the characters’ thoughts via the books, and the acting makes the characters and their arcs more compelling.
The Long Game (Game Changers #6) by Rachel Reid
To the world they are rivals, but to each other they are everything.
Ten years.
That’s how long Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov have been seeing each other. How long they’ve been keeping their relationship a secret. From friends, from family…from the league. If Shane wants to stay at the top of his game, what he and Ilya share has to remain secret. He loves Ilya, but what if going public ruins everything?
Ilya is sick of secrets. Shane has gotten so good at hiding his feelings, sometimes Ilya questions if they even exist. The closeness, the intimacy, even the risk that would come with being open about their relationship…Ilya wants it all.
It’s time for them to decide what’s most important—hockey or love.
It’s time to make a call.
Now, The Long Game is a book I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about, but I definitely liked it more than Heated Rivalry as a book. Y’all, I fucking sobbed while reading it!! But I’m going to try to string together my thoughts in a cohesive manner.
Ilya’s Mental Health Journey and The Weight of Being In the Closet
Holy cow, this was where the book really shined for me. I felt every ache alongside Ilya, and his mental health journey was so brilliantly written. A part of that (although not the totality of it) is a piece about the weight of being in the closet. I don’t speak about it on my platform often because I’m not out to my family and don’t plan to be, but I’m queer and only fairly recently have kind of come into my queer identity more. Ilya’s struggle with the weight of being in the closet hit so close to home for me. It put into words and onto the page something I didn’t even totally know I was feeling. It’s been so liberating to be out and to be able to fully embrace my queer identity in more spaces than in the past, but having decided that I won’t intentionally come out to my family and that I can’t be out or to act in a certain way around certain people…that IS heavy. To have to navigate being in a queer relationship while needing to hide that relationship. That hit me hard. Reading The Long Game, I felt that weight on my chest, on my shoulders, in my body. I’m so grateful to Rachel Reid for capturing that feeling and reflecting it back to me, even as it’s painful when I’m still in it. It’s what made me love this book so much despite some of its weaknesses. It shined a light onto some part of me, and I felt every emotional beat. It gives me hope that one day that weight will be lifted.
Ilya and Shane’s Character Arcs
I’ve seen a lot of critiques about Reid’s treatment of Shane and Ilya’s characters and how Ilya is clearly her favorite. And I completely agree. Shane is so sidelined in this book that it really feels like it’s Ilya’s book (Heated Rivalry could maybe be “Shane’s book,” but I think it’s more balanced in POVs, so I didn’t read it that way). That’s not to say I didn’t love the focus on Ilya because I absolutely loved the character arc and exploration we get for him, but it does seem like it came at the expense of Shane’s story. I wanted more nuance into Shane’s perspective and to better understand his thoughts on situations and why he acts the way he does or makes the decisions that he does, and it just wasn’t there. Many aspects of Shane’s story are not touched upon at all, and I think the ending and resolution was rushed and needed more time and space – and certainly more Shane. Perhaps the final book will redeem some of it.
Hockey and the NHL
I’ve never been interested in hockey prior to watching Heated Rivalry, but I appreciated how much Rachel Reid got into how problematic the NHL is and didn’t just gloss over it. I read somewhere that she wrote these books because she loves hockey but wants to see hockey culture change, and you very much get that sense in The Long Game in particular. (But we support the Centaurs!) While not previously a hockey fan, as a queer person of color, almost every space I’ve been in and every passion of mine has never felt like it was “meant” for someone like me, so I could really understand and appreciate what she brings here in this regard, even if I’ve never experienced it to the extremes that Shane and Ilya do. I’m excited to see how she rounds out this part of the plot in Unrivaled.
On a different note, while I’ve seen some people explain this, and I suppose I get it…I still don’t totally understand the big deal about Shane and Ilya’s relationship once there are several other players who are out. I suppose it’s because they’re both active hockey players, which is not the case for the others. I also somewhat understand that their rivalry has been built up by the league and others, and I understand that a team would be concerned about the optics and possibility of player “letting” their partner win. But I still didn’t totally understand why it was such a bigger deal than coming out (which is, of course, a big deal).
And I’m excited to watch more women’s hockey!! If you’ve checked out men’s hockey thanks to the show, please also go check out the PWHL or NCAA women’s ice hockey.
Brief Thoughts on Their “Coming Out” (Spoilers)
[Spoilers hidden] I don’t want to spoil anything, but of the many storylines in The Long Game, there was one plot point that I wish had not been there. Click if you want my quick thoughts on it.
Of the many storylines in The Long Game, I struggled with the fact that they were outed and couldn’t come out on their own terms. I think there were so many other ways Rachel Reid could have created tension and conflict, and I think the characters deserved better in this regard. The NHL conflict could be exactly the same even without this plot point, in my opinion. What I think bothers me most about it is that Shane didn’t come out to his parents on exactly his own terms either. I probably wouldn’t have felt as horribly about it if they’d at least had that moment with full agency. There’s already so much that Shane and Ilya are dealing with, and I just hate that, in a romance novel, they have to be so traumatically outed when it doesn’t feel necessary to the outer conflict. It also wasn’t even resolved in a way that I found satisfying. Yes, it was a mistake and not an intentional outing, but I don’t think we felt the full weight of it in the story once their initial panic faded. It’s Shane’s worst nightmare come true. Also…they shouldn’t have forgiven JJ that quickly. Just saying.
Let me know what you thought about the book(s), if you read them, or let me know if you want to gush about the show together!
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