rating:☆☆☆ 1/2
published: 6th June 2016
spoilers? yes
Goodreads
Anything worth fighting for always required sacrifices. She wasn't the type to live her life in the shadows of what-ifs and regret.
Galley provided by publisher
For The Win tells the story of Lainey Lukas as she gets back into football following a horrific injury in the World Cup final. The owner of the franchise she joins, decides that the women's team will train on the main training ground, while the men's team get relegated to the apparently cursed Cricket Ground pitch, a move which doesn't go down well with Gabe Havelak, the men's captain.
Thus begins the media-dubbed "Battle of the Sexes" in which the teams compete in various tasks (including cooking and fund-raising) to prove they are the better team. Whoever wins gets to train on the main pitch.
Overall, the book was enjoyable. I really liked the first half of it, but the second half was a bit less interesting, especially once Lainey and Gabe had actually got together. I feel like that could have been delayed for a while longer.
The second half of the book also included some of the scenes I didn't like so much. There was Lainey's sudden attack of jealousy and possessiveness, following Grace flirting with Gabe after the naked calendar reveal. Which, I guess, was a nice subversion of the man usually doing that, but possessiveness always makes me a little dubious, especially if it's as violently expressed as I read this being and unless it's conveyed reciprocally, which it wasn't here.
Another scene I wasn't a huge fan of was their first sex scene, which involved an overuse of the word "pounding". If it's aiming to be 'hot' or whatever, then pounding is not the way to go about it surely. I feel like it ruins all the sexual tension (not that there seemed to be huge amounts, beyond 'oh he's hot'/'oh she's hot').
And then the Havelak family curse, which felt unnecessary, really. Especially the scene were Mama Havelak starts claiming that Lainey is a proponent of the curse, while Lainey is there. At which point, Lainey gets pissed off at Gabe (why?), and they have a prank war (but really, it's just aimed at getting attention, like pulling pigtails). And then they make up (including a 24-hour sex marathon, which, forgive me, is so unbelievable), and everyone's happy.
There were a few other issues I had with this book. For one, there was the women-hating-on-women thing going on. All of the female footballers hated on Grace because she kept flirting with the guys (especially Gabe) and... not much else. Not here for that, sorry.
Also the overprotective parents/brother trope going on, with Tessa. I mean, Tessa is wholly capable of looking out for herself, even at 14. It was understandable given that the guy Gabe was eyeing up in his overprotective mode was 19, but Tessa was perfectly able to show her lack of interest. Like, chill out, Gabe.
The age difference was also an issue. I don't quite understand why almost every romance has to have a significant (like, 5 or 6 years) age difference. Is it like a rule of NA romance? Why can't they just be the same age? (Also, the masturbation to a poster of him when she was younger is borderline creepy.)
I think part of the reason I didn't enjoy this book more was because I was always internally comparing it to Kulti, which has great characters and such unbearable tension. For The Win seemed for a while like it might live up to that, but in the end, it was a little disappointing, even though I enjoyed it.
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