Despite (still) not knowing anything about soccer, this is a fun, spicy, and lightly angsty sapphic rom com! Early thoughts : I am frustrated by Grace's whiplash emotions about soccer. It's all she is, all she knows, because of how early she started playing, and how that makes her feel aged (which I'll get to in a second..) and she is grumpy and bad at being social -- she basically just sits silently whenever Phoebe is rambling or talking or asking questions about non-soccer stuff and I think there's something more to this, or at least I hope there is, because otherwise it feels kinda.. baity -- and then she'll get all bent out of shape and butthurt if Phoebe comes to her with soccer specific questions or inquiries. So like.. what is it? Are you only soccer or can you be both and if you're both why are you mad when someone talks to you about the former? This gave me a headache. Second issue is that.. this is a twenty-six year old person who acts and behaves like she's a hundred years old. Complaining about her body (but, despite being a pro athlete, refusing to deal with her injuries and potentially making them worse..) being old and broken down and acting the same and I just.. I don't know. I expected this to be a lot more fun and and wholesome based on the Ted Lasso pitch and it was not.

He isn’t wrong—she’d had to dig through her drawstring bag, thinking all hope was lost until she found a bill in the bottom corner. Hi, is this Phoebe Matthews?” The voice is accented—Phoebe doesn’t know enough about the UK—Great Britain? the British Isles? whatever it’s called—to place it exactly. Moving from Idaho to New Orleans will be a big change for Phoebe, but she knows she can make it work. Well, that was certainly a choice both my decision to continue listening to this book despite not liking it and the decision to write the book at all. I mean really? Can you really consider a book rivals to lovers if the characters are on the same team and they're not rivals at any point in the entire book? They're not even enemies? Hell they don't even dislike each other. In what world does this classify as a rivals to lovers? i wanted to love this one because i have been dying to find a sapphic romance to gush over but this was a total miss for me.

Which leads us to Cleat Cute! The novel stars Grace Henderson a 10 year veteran of the US National Women’s soccer team and captain of the New Orleans pro team who is suddenly challenged by a fresh face out of college - Pheobe Matthews who is drafted by New Orleans. I am probably going to get some of the terms around the soccer stuff wrong because it isn’t my jam but I assume the research is accurate. Interestingly considering that their last novel was an age gap, Wilsner does often remind us that Grace and Pheobe only have a 4 year age gap and their dynamic is more due to experience than age.

Phoebe and Grace both present as neurodivergent, but when the topics are talked about, Phoebe reacts with anger and a seemingly internalized stigma against neurodivergence/ADHD. When Grace tries to help her, she turns to tiktok of all places for information on ADHD. Please, y’all, don’t self-diagnose on tiktok. In Mistakes Were Made, Wilsner somehow deftly depicts both the messy, exuberant confusion of college life and the messy, bewildering confusion of middle age. Cassie and Erin's journey is taboo and sexy, but ultimately, it is deeply sweet: a story of how love can, and should, transcend societal expectations." - Anita Kelly, author of Love & Other Disasters Grace Henderson has played on the National team since she was sixteen years old. Everything she does is to stay in shape and be focused for soccer. Meeting the rookie for her pro team sends Grace into a tailspin. No one has ever treated her like a normal person before this. Phoebe’s youthful enthusiasm, work ethic and easy manner pulls Grace toward her like no one else has in her life. My only problem with this book is that I wish it was longer! We obviously got a lot of Grace and Phoebe interactions throughout the whole story, but I would have loved to read more of them actually together in a relationship. I just didn’t want this story to ever end!I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher (thank you!) in exchange for an honest review. ** I would recommend this for any romance reader that likes a bit of sports and teamwork in a story. And passion, because that’s included as well as an hea. Phoebe Matthew’s chances of playing professional soccer is very slim as she played for a small college in the midwest. Being drafted to play for the same professional team her idol plays on is a mind blowing dream come true for Phoebe. Cleat Cute features a well-developed romance, with plenty of miscommunication causing tension and growth, however, for me, my reaction to it throughout was mixed. there is no actual rivalry whatsoever unless you count grace just having impenetrable walls of trust issues as rivalry? they almost immediately become FWB with each other, which when the main characters are actually rivals and hate each other can be extremely hot but this was not the case here unfortunately.

It was strange. It was like the conflict needed to be there and we were going to make it happen no matter how out of place it seemed. Cleat Cute is a rivals to lovers story that is lighthearted and fun with splashes of seriousness folded in. Soccer is the setting but the story revolves around the players more than the game itself. We are inside the minds of both main characters riding their emotional ups and downs as they play out. Even though they have this arrangement and are friends and teammates, this book is RIDDLED with miscommunication. At every possible turn, the two of them use sex to distract each other for forming a deeper connection. At one point one of them thought they were in an exclusive relationship, and the other didn’t even know 🤦🏻‍♀️ Cleat Cute is a fun, sexy read about two women falling in love regardless of what stands in their way." - The Mary Sue I enjoyed the found family vibes and the team dynamics. It’s one of my favorite parts about reading sports romances. While the friends with benefits is pretty fast, the actual relationship development is pretty slow burn.I also appreciated that both characters were neurodivergent (though that ended up being a double-edged sword in my opinion, which I'll explain later). One character has ADHD and the other is likely somewhere on the spectrum (introverted, overly structured, struggles with social cues, etc). It's always good to see those depicted and having some consequence in the story, not just depicted as an inconsequential personality trait; those who struggle with these sort of things know just how much it can affect your life, so I appreciate when neurodiversities aren't played down in a story. What I did like was the representation we get from Wilsner. There are also quite a few side characters with the soccer teams and just about every gender identity and sexuality it represented. I liked that we are getting more and more neuridivergent characters as well. Although the assumptions Grace makes about Phoebe and how the whole conversation happens really didn’t sit well with me.