Kim is a longtime SBTB reader. She writes boring professional documents by day to fund her ever-growing TBR pile, which is currently overflowing with T. Kingfisher, mystery thrillers, and MM romance. Everything she knows about hockey, she learned from queer love stories or the Mighty Ducks franchise.
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TW/CW for anxiety, depression, anxiety-induced vomiting, emetophobia
Recently, I’ve been on an M/M hockey romance binge (and let me just say “queer romance” + “professional hockey” is the Reese’s “you got your peanut butter in my chocolate” mashup I didn’t know I needed in my life). When I read Season’s Change, I knew I had to shout about it to the Bitchery. Probably the best and definitely the weirdest way I can describe how I felt about it is that I wanted to escape my day-to-day life and just curl up inside this book like some kind of hockey-themed pillow fort.
Season’s Change is sweet and steamy, funny and a little angsty, with two likable leads who support and protect each other. It also features lots and lots of my personal catnip: it’s an opposites attract, slow burn, friends-to-lovers, roommates-to-lovers romance with a himbo MC. There’s also a makeover, which, I mean, I just can’t.
Olly Järvinen is a seasoned hockey player who is gay and not out, and who has just been traded to the DC team. His previous team was a homophobia dumpster fire, and he is still dealing (or avoiding dealing) with the trauma of that. His anxiety and depression are sensitively and realistically portrayed, and they sometimes make for a painful read, especially early on.
Content warning: Olly has a problem with unintentional, anxiety-induced vomiting, which I imagine could be activating for folks with experiences of disordered eating or emetophobia.
The DC coach assigns rookie Benji Bryzinski as his roommate, in hopes that Benji will be a support system for Olly. Benji is a sunshiney himbo who likes to party but also embraces things like yoga, healthy eating, and therapy as tools to support his own self-regulation after a difficult upbringing.
What starts as Benji helping Olly quickly evolves into a strong and mutual friendship as the novel progresses through the hockey season and into the postseason. In addition to Olly’s anxiety, they both have “stuff”—fraught family relationships, self-image issues—that they’re dealing with. There are no easy fixes / Magic Wangs here—just two bros who show up for each other, and who do cute-but-not-cutesy things like make pinky promises and do “old person yoga” and hug and touch each other kind of a lot.
[Benji] pawed at Olly’s shoulder with his good hand, dragged him into his chest. His heartbeat was steady as he gave him a one-armed squeeze. “I read on the internet that pressure can help with anxiety. Like, weighted blankets and getting hugged really tight and shit.”
Olly’s ribs might be cracking, whether because of the pressure from Benji’s big, solid arm or the thought of him googling “how to help my buddy’s anxiety.”
This book is very much a slow burn. It’s really enjoyable to see their friendship grow and deepen (which I feel like you don’t always get in friends-to-lovers romances), and to watch them falling for each other long before they’re ever romantically involved.
This is especially true for Benji, who identifies as straight when the book starts; he doesn’t think “I’m interested in Olly so I might be bi” so much as he thinks “Olly has pretty hair / I’m happy when he’s happy / I like touching him (for some reason?) / I WILL DESTROY ANYONE WHO HURTS HIM / Olly has VERY pretty hair and I like to smell it (for some reason???).”
It takes time for Benji to develop awareness of himself as a bisexual man, and to recognize how his sexuality shaped his pre-Olly romantic relationships. That said, his realization is slow but pretty un-angsty, which is a nice counterpoint to Olly’s anxieties around being a gay professional athlete. There is also a whole lot of Benji un-self-consciously manhandling Olly while Olly quietly loses his mind about it, which is one of my favorite sub-sub-tropes.
Season’s Change is very funny and often just a lot of fun to read. The f-bomb-laden banter between Benji, Olly, and their teammates is great, especially when it includes Poiro, the French Canadian goalie who could stand to “be seventy-five percent less dramatic about literally everything.” Benji and Olly have distinctive voices on the page, and Benji’s non-toxic bro vibes, in particular, are hilarious. I kind of love Benji.
I hesitate to mention my biggest complaint (which is still minor) because in some ways it feels unfair. In the second half of the book,
…a lot of narrative tension arises from Olly and (sometimes) Benji not talking about their feelings and making assumptions instead, and I personally find that stressful. But the reason I say this complaint is a little unfair is that there are established and understandable reasons why they would have trouble communicating. I never got that annoying feeling of characters withholding simple information that would easily fix their problems for chapter after chapter for no apparent reason. Also, recognizing that their communication kind of sucks is an important part of their relationship arc, which I thought worked well.
But it was still stressful, and might be for another reader, too.
Really, I just didn’t want Season’s Change to end. The friendship, the banter, the pining—the pacing was great, but I honestly would also have been happy if it was a hundred pages longer, just because I wanted to keep hanging out with Benji and Olly and their team. I foresee many happy rereads in my future.
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Bonus Extra Recs: Here are some of my other recommended reads from my M/M hockey binge, if that’s your jam, too.
- Contract Season (Cait Nary): the second book in the Trade Season series, with a Benji/Olly cameo. Editor’s Note: Lara’s grade: B+
- Time to Shine (Rachel Reid): a favorite of mine. Also features a himbo/quiet guy roommate pairing. Editor’s Note: Lara’s grade: B
- Game Changers series (Rachel Reid): especially loved the two Shane and Ilya stories (Heated Rivalry and Long Game) and Role Model. Editor’s Note: Shana’s grade for Long Game: D, Lara’s Grade for Role Model: B
- Hockey Ever After series, starts with Winging It (Ashlyn Kane and Morgan James)
- Lucky Bounce (Cait Nary) Editor’s Note: Lara’s grade: B+
- The Inside Edge (Ashlyn Kane)
