Review of "The Right Move"

"Forever, Blue."

Another book finished, which is probably a good thing because I bought four new books today (at the time of writing this) and I need more space for my ever growing collection. This one took me a bit to get through, but I'll talk more about that further in. Let's get to the fourth book I've read by Liz Tomforde!

The Right Move by Liz Tomforde is the second book of the Windy City series and contains a different sport, one I usually wouldn't read but I loved Indy in the other books, so why not. Indy, as we remember from the first book, is friends with Stevie and a flight attendant for the hockey team in Chicago. Ryan is Stevie's brother and the new captain of the Chicago Devils basketball team and takes on the offer of housing Indy after she has no place to go when her boyfriend of six years cheated on her. And obviously, we can't just have one trope of roommates and forced proximity, why not throw some fake dating in there??

They make a deal, Indy helps Ryan get the approval of his GM who doesn't believe he's good enough to be captain by being his fake girlfriend, and Ryan helps Indy show her friends that she's better off without Alex and has moved on from him. However, it starts off horribly because Ryan has not been in a relationship since college, and has been celibate for two, so he's a little out of his comfort zone with it all. They both make bucket lists for one another with things they each want the other to accomplish during this time of faking it.

Things start to get a little better, but that's because it soon comes clear that neither of them are faking attraction anymore, and they start to fall for one another. It did feel a little too instant for me, but hey, this is a romance book, it's pretty common. It's not exactly a slow-burn, though it feels like it should be. Once again, this book felt like it was way too long for the story it was telling. I did, however, enjoy it more than Mile High.

Ryan and Indy are both broken people who have dealt with so much heartbreak in their lives. We learn why Ryan is so sheltered with his status and why he's not one to live outside of his apartment, and Indy has never really been alone and has spent the better part of 22 years of her life being friends and in love with one guy. They both couldn't be more vastly different, and that's why they worked so well together. Indy, despite being completely ruined by her ex, still believed in love, and still wanted to see the world in color and see the best in people. Ryan, on the other hand, lived a very black-and-white life, down to the colors of his apartment. He refused to let anyone in and would not even allow his own teammates over to his place. I love how Indy made him so soft and while I don't like that he relied on her to do so, it's obvious he needed someone to break him out of the funk he was in for years and show him life is worth living.

I would say, for the first half of this book, I didn't like Ryan at all. I could not understand why people raved about him. He was insufferable, he refused to get to know his teammates outside of basketball, and the sport is all he cared about. He was given the honor of being named captain by his team, and he could not have given two shits to step up and take leadership in guiding them and, like I said, getting to know them as people rather than just teammates. But, when we finally hear Ryan's background and why he is the way he is, why he views basketball as a chore and a job more than something fun, because the woman he thought he loved in college manipulated him and led him to believe he was going to be a dad, only for it to be some scheme to get money, it definitely changed my view on him.

He went from someone who didn't want to better himself, to a wounded soul with unhealed trauma to work through. Everything made sense as to why he did it, not that it excuses it, but him being unable to leave his apartment due to depression and keeping everything super clean because during that time, he was living in a mess and not caring about anything, it made my heart ache for him. Not to mention, he shows his love in quiet ways and I love the contrast of him being this big superstar in Chicago, but loving in such small and personal ways. Like immediately wanting to learn sign language so he could speak with Indy's dad without having her to translate, and remembering little things about her like putting her coffee in the fridge and bringing vegetarian food for her when they go camping with Ron and Ethan and their wives.

As you will see, I didn't rate this super high because as much as I did love their love story, there were of course some things that I didn't care for. For example, the whole "teaching him how to be like a good book boyfriend" felt way too meta. I really dislike when romance books do this, when the FMC is a reader and mentions how the MMC should be more like her book boyfriends. It's way too weird and unnecessary in my opinion. And mentioned above, I didn't care for Ryan halfway through the book, which was really sucky because I wanted to like him. Another thing is again, this was just too long. I was so bored trying to finish it, something about it just couldn't keep me interested. I'm not big on basketball, so any scenes that came up of them playing, I didn't understand one bit, but that's my own personal issue, I don't like the sport. But I wanted to give it a shot, unfortunately, just fell a little flat for me. I don't know what it was, but by the time I got closer to the end, it was dragging on way too long, and I will admit I skimmed over the epilogue and the bonus chapter that is in my edition. It was not a satisfying ending for me, unfortunately.

For what it's worth, I really did love the story as a whole, and Ryan turned out to be a pretty decent guy, and I of course loved the insight into Indy and Rio's friendship, which is the sole reason as to why I even read this book in the first place. The spice was nice (hehe), the banter and flirting, the quiet acts of love, it was a pretty nice read, had it been shorter. Below is my overall review.