From Lukov with Love

Product Information

Throughout the narrative, the power of love is portrayed as a transformative force. Jasmine and Ivan’s relationship transcends their professional partnership, providing them with emotional support and healing from past wounds. The story showcases how love can mend hearts, change lives, and inspire personal growth. A Well-Written and Memorable Read

Jasmine has a few rough, very unsuccessful years behind her. She would give everything for just one more chance to compete and prove herself on the ice. I'm disappointed, even when I shouldn't because I told myself to not to have high expectations just because of the hype... See? I never learn. And probably I never will.Jasmine is a person who had to go through a lot of injuries in her career. She has reached an age considered the last phase for people in figure skating. we love a romantic man. when he hugged her from behind >>>>>>> my brain stopped working i was just obsessed. Those are some of the ones I annotated but by god at the start of the book there banter and jabs at each other were too good to be true Whilst I enjoyed reading about the ice-skating, the family relationships, Ivan and Jasmine's hate to love friendship and loved Jas's personal growth, I just couldn't buy into the fact that she was meant to be 26 and him 29! I kept thinking they were 15/16?! I've never spent so much time in the head of such an immature, insecure drama queen! I really didn't like Jasmine, the heroine for most of the book; she was rude, obnoxious and godamn, the constant monologues and childish insults were too much! Don't even get me started on the blinking. Jasmine blinked at Ivan. Ivan blinked at Jasmine. She blinked at her mum, her coach, her siblings etc. I wanted to hurl my kindle at the wall at some points. We get it, they blink a lot.. Some other reactions woulda been appreciated 😂

This book, written by Mariana Zapata, was published in 2018. I don't know why it suddenly started showing on my feeds and why my friends started recommending it now all of a sudden. It might be due to booktok, booktube or bookstagram. It might also be because it is the season of romance right now. Whatever the reason for it, I decided to go for it as I have already read another book, Kulti, by the same author and enjoyed reading it.

What It Is About

At Lancaster Prep, the girls love her. They all want to be her friend. Only I see Wren for who she really is. Left: Me, holding up my test papers after passing my Junior Freestyle Test almost exactly a year ago with my Evita program. Right: Me again, performing my Arabian Nights program in the winter show. That had me glancing at Ivan over my shoulder. He had his entire attention on Jessie, and I was pretty sure he was smiling down at her. Huh. “My early thirties, maybe? I don’t know. I might be okay with not having any either. I haven’t really thought about it much, except for knowing I don’t want to have them any time soon, you know what I mean?” This started off as a solid 4 star read for me, and it all went downhill from there. Not to say that this was not a fun read - because it was. I was just expecting more Because I knew what that felt like. And I’d already screwed up enough with making grown adults I loved think they weren’t important. If I was going to do something, I wanted to do my best and give it everything.

Personally, I felt like their chemistry was at a constant 'best friend' level, because both of them needed that at the time. It felt weird and odd in the last 10% for them to get together as more than just that. It felt rushed and like the author needed to get out that they were actually more than friends. Normally, I don’t fall for contemporary romance characters (I’m more of a sci-fi/fantasy whore anyway), but there was something about Vanya Lukov. I simply fell in love with him. Me and Jasmine, both of us. There is a lot of body-shaming in this novel. Some of it is written in a way that is quite normal to call such problematic terms. The author should have to be very careful in her future works while using such words. I wasn’t,” he answered immediately. “I like this baby though, and that one. Maybe I need to think about it.”The author mentions the problems of using "but" as the connector while complimenting a person in this book. both jasmine and lukov were just really immature icl. i just didn't like either one of them much, and while there were moments i tolerated jasmine she was also... very annoying