Wicked Serve by Grace Reilly

TL;DR: Not for me, not at all sadly. Cringey and with so much smut, yikes.
Source: NetGalley, thank you so much to the publisher!.

Plot: Izzy meets her brother’s rival and has a summer fling and they end up going to the same school. It gets smutty and stupid decisions are made.
Characters: Nikolai was okay, I actually didn’t mind him. It was Izzy that had me gritting my teeth. Everything felt a bit too shallow and young for what they were supposed to be.
Setting: It was a blur to be honest. None of the settings or the world around these two stood out.
Romance: Again, not for me. It was rough.

Thoughts:

I got two chapters into Wicked Serve and I knew it was going to be a rough time. I gritted my teeth and pushed through, but I honestly wish I hadn’t at this point. I’m not going to rip into the book, it was what it was and a lot of people did love it! I recommend giving the sample a go as it seems to stick quick or bounce back hard early.

Izzy and Nikolai have a summer fling, even though he is her brother’s biggest hockey rival. She’s on the college volleyball team under his Mom and he ends up transferred to her school. Of course they meet again and they get at it… again. No one in this book truly felt quite their age, I’ll start there. Especially Izzy who read as below 18 to me in almost every scenario. Couple that with the ‘I have a scar on my face’ Nikolai who was better but not great and I was struggling. I’m not entirely sure if it was the immaturity or the writing, but the references to name brands and stores also put me off. Izzy is a young and wealthy college kid, which normally wouldn’t bother me, but she is fighting a that exact stereotype from her volleyball coach. Unfortunately she read that way to me for large amounts of the book.

My last point on this is the smut was far, far too much. It felt like 60% of this book was smut, and not even great smut for me. I’ve never seen nor heard of anyone getting off from crawling toward their partner. Just crawling. On the ground. I’ve read a lot of BDSM and kink and that’s a new one.

I wont’ recommend this. Instead I’ll say, try the sample. Read other reviews. It wasn’t for me but it very well could be for you and you know what, to each their own. This just isn’t mine.