Why I read it:  This was recommended by Jane from Dear Author so I bought it.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads)  The sport she loves is out of reach. The boy she loves has someone else.

What now?

She expected to start Harkness College as a varsity ice hockey player. But a serious accident means that Corey Callahan will start school in a wheelchair instead.

Across the hall, in the other handicapped-accessible dorm room, lives the too-delicious-to-be real Adam Hartley, another would-be hockey star with his leg broken in two places. He’s way out of Corey’s league.

Also, he’s taken.

Nevertheless, an unlikely alliance blooms between Corey and Hartley in the “gimp ghetto” of McHerrin Hall. Over tequila, perilously balanced dining hall trays, and video games, the two cope with disappointments that nobody else understands.

They’re just friends, of course, until one night when things fall apart. Or fall together. All Corey knows is that she’s falling. Hard.

But will Hartley set aside his trophy girl to love someone as broken as Corey? If he won’t, she will need to find the courage to make a life for herself at Harkness — one which does not revolve around the sport she can no longer play, or the brown-eyed boy who’s afraid to love her back.

What worked for me (and what didn’t):  Okay, this one grabbed me from the start and made me stay up too late last night finishing. I’d say it’s a fairly low conflict story even though each main protagonist has plenty of “shit to shovel”.  Corey and Hartley become friends quickly and that friendship builds and grows over time.  Corey basically falls in love with him but they are just friends because Hartley is taken.  His extremely high maintenance girlfriend is studying abroad for a few months.  So there is chemistry and some light flirtation which neither acknowledges as flirtation because he’s taken, and a very slow build to the romance.

Hartley’s relationship with Stacia (the high maintenance girlfriend) is difficult to understand for much of the book but it kind of makes sense by the end.  And, even though she’s pushy and demanding, he doesn’t let her just roll all over him so I thought the dynamic between them was interesting.  He seemed so sanguine about her demands and he mocks them to her face which didn’t seem to bother her. It made me wonder how much of Stacia was an act actually.  Right near the end, we get a glimpse that there is more to Stacia than meets the eye.  I wonder if she will turn up in future books and be something more than mostly a stereotype?

Essentially, the only thing keeping Hartley and Corey apart is Stacia – there’s not much more conflict between them than that.  Which sounds simple – and it was, but the story was never boring to me because there was so much else going on, especially for Corey as she learns to navigate college and as she continues to deal with the effects of injury which have left her permanently disabled.   She cannot feel her right foot and left leg as a result of a spinal cord injury and uses a wheelchair most of the time when the book starts, as well as occasionally using leg braces and forearm crutches.  She is about 8 months post injury at the beginning of the story.

At Harkness College there are two handicapped-accessible rooms – one a double, which Corey shares with fellow freshman Dana and the other a single, which is occupied by Adam Hartley, a junior who broke his leg in 2 places during hockey pre-season training camp.  Corey feels Dana drew the short straw because she is not disabled but has to share a room away from the other freshmen but Dana is not fazed by this at all.  In fact, they have a lot more space than most other freshmen and even double beds.  Dana and Corey become fast friends very quickly and I enjoyed this aspect of the story very much.

Hartley is a varsity ice hockey player, just as Corey would have been but for her injury and they bond over a computer game “RealStix” which they play together regularly.  They have other things in common too.  Hartley is smart, funny and kind and Corey finds herself sharing things with him about her life that she has told no-one else – which leads Hartley to buy her a most cool birthday present and which was the cause of a few laughs during the course of the story.  Hartley does not embarrass and this was a lot of fun to watch too because his openness challenges Corey’s natural reticence in fun ways which do not seek to humiliate her.

There are sections from both main characters POV, although I’d say it was more from Corey than Hartley.  Still, I had a good feel for both characters I think, and liked them very much.

On the downside, they are both very young and I thought the “I love you” was a bit fast.

I enjoyed the secondary characters – Bridger wasn’t there just for sequel bait and I enjoyed the parts of the book where Corey and Hartley are, together or separately, interacting with their various peers.  When Corey decides her feelings for Hartley are a lost cause, she breaks away and starts to spend less time with him.  She makes a deliberate and smart decision to socialise and finds more friends in the process.  Even after (this isn’t a spoiler is it? we all know it’s got a happy ending, right?) things sort themselves out with Hartley, Corey continues with the new social activities and it was good to see her circle widen.

The sex was sexy and fun and meaningful.  There wasn’t a lot of it but there didn’t need to be. I felt it was just right for the story and I appreciated the focus was mainly on dialogue and intimacy without it always being about sex.  Even though I felt the I love you was too fast, Hartley and Corey definitely have chemistry and a really strong bond of friendship which makes me think they could go the distance.  I wondered what would happen after Hartley finishes college but that was over a year away by the time this book ends and it didn’t bother me too much to not know everything.

What else? The book deals with disability in various ways.  Temporary (for Hartley) and permanent (for Corey) and it covers practical issues such as transport, accessible spaces, self-care and the way if a child asks you what would be an outrageous question from an adult, it’s often okay.  Hartley had a better idea of some of what Corey was dealing with because he’d lost hockey for a year and he had to struggle to get around.  But, he never lost sight of the fact that his disability was temporary.  He did want to help Corey and encourage her. Hartley had a very practical way about him which I appreciated and I think this made it easier for Corey to gradually come to accept assistance from him. He didn’t make a big deal out of it. Part of Corey’s journey was learning to ask for help when she needed it but also maintaining her independence.  She hated being dependent on other people and preferred to find ways to do things herself.  Which all seems very realistic to me.  But I’m not a disabled person.  I can say from *my* non-disabled perspective that in the course of reading the book, I gained new appreciation for some of the issues and challenges a disabled person might face and it made me think in new ways, so that counts as positive for me. Corey wanted to be seen as Corey, not “the girl in the wheelchair” and I thought the narrative made some strong points about this.

But I can’t say whether a disabled person would think the same way.  Of course, disabled people aren’t a monolith anyway. I thought that the portrayal of Corey’s fears about sex after a spinal cord injury were sensitively discussed without tipping into some kind of ghoulish fascination.  I was vaguely uncomfortable when at one point Hartley thinks about how much Corey’s courage inspires him.  I don’t know if the word “gimp” is okay when it is used by disabled people to self-describe.  (Is it the same as it being okay for a gay man to call himself a “f*ggot” but it’s completely not okay for a straight person to call someone else by the same term?)  I thought the references to how Corey has to self-catheterise morning and night to avoid UTIs was authentic and I liked the way it was presented matter-of-factly and then we all moved on.  My impression was that Hartley did not fetishise Corey;  he just loved her and accepted all of her.

Honestly, I think there are really good things and, very probably, some not-so-good things re disability in the book but I’m not the right person to tease it all out. I’ve realised that the more I know, the less I know and I feel completely unqualified to speak to whether disability was dealt with well in this book.  I am trying to read with a more sensitive eye to such things but I don’t know how well I do at it.

What I can say is that I enjoyed the story very much and I am keen to read more from this author. I have already downloaded the next book and novella and I doubt I will be able to resist the temptation to glom, even though I have review books I should be reading and Mt. TBR is giving me the evil eye.

Grade: B+/A-

BUY IT:
AMAZON     KOBO