Review: Revolve

Revolve by Bal Khabra
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Two and a half stars.

Sierra Romanova is an Olympic hopeful whose figure skating dreams were crushed after a lift went wrong and left her in a coma, with scarring, and PTSD. She's trying to get back on the ice but she keeps getting flashbacks, added to which her boyfriend/skating partner not only dropped her literally but also figuratively personally AND professionally. Also, this late in the season there are no male skaters available to partner with.

Dylan Donovan is the good-looking party frat boy of the hockey team, but a weak moment after he hears some family news has led to a failed drugs test which gets him kicked off the team and puts his career in the NHL in jeopardy. A little known fact about Dylan is that he and his little sister Ada used to compete in figure skating, until they realised the person they were trying to impress never bothered to show up.

A deal is done, Dylan can skate ... if he agrees to partner Sierra.

This is a riff on the 1990s classic film The Cutting Edge and subsequent spin-offs. Its an opposites attract, enemies from the get-go, YA/NA romance. There was nothing wrong with the story, although I'm guessing this is part of a series as there seemed to be a lot of things that happened 'off stage', presumably in previous books, other than a lack of skating.

However, as the book went on I became more disturbed by the intimate scenes. I 'get' that possessiveness and being unable to keep your hands off someone is meant to be attractive but it just screamed red flag to me. Dylan tells her what to wear (and what not), not to answer her phone, he talks about breaking through anything to get to her, ruining her pussy (ouch), he slaps her thighs, pulling her fistful of her hair and yanking her back, saying she fucks like a porn star, and talks about stuffing her full of his cock - and a lot of this happens in just one scene! I 100% accept I am not the target demographic for this novel but this sort of thing worries me because it excuses abusive and controlling behaviour as 'love' and places unrealistic expectations on women.

So what would have been a pleasant enough three and a half stars got downgraded to two and a half stars because of the red flags and also because there was too much angst. She's got PTSD and doesn't think anyone would like her if they knew what she was really like. His parents are in an abusive relationship and he doesn't feel that anyone would like him unless he plays the class clown.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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