Pucked Up is the story of Buck and Sunny. Buck is a 23 year old hockey player in the NHL who is recovering from an addiction to puck bunnies (hockey groupies). Sunny is a 20 year old yoga instructor who still lives with her parents and has been carrying on a sexless relationship with Buck for about 3 months when the book begins. The book is about Buck's struggle to make Sunny believe he is worthy of her despite the constant barrage of social media images which suggest he is still dipping in the puck bunny pool.
There are lots of positive reviews about this book but this will not be one of them. To be fair, I do not really get into NA romance because the characters are too young and their stories are too young to appeal to me. Even though the sex scenes in this book are not NA, everything else is NA verging on even YA. So, it's entirely possible that I just shouldn't have picked this book up in the first place. If you are like me and you don't really enjoy NA romance, I suggest you take a pass on this one.
This book was plagued by extremely immature characters and it drove me crazy. Buck...I don't even know where to start. Being inside his POV was like being stuck in the head of a frat boy after a long night of partying. The way he talked about sex and Sunny and life in general, it was just all very freshmen year of collegeish. My other issue with Buck is that he was really doing the best he could to make things work with Sunny. He never actually messes up in this book but he and all of the supporting cast are constantly berating him for fucking things up. I kept thinking 'where? where did he mess up and how did I miss it?' Which brings us to Sunny. Sunny was completely insecure about dating a professional athlete and basically believed everything she read on social media. As a result, there is very little time in the book that the characters spend together. Instead the book is a montage of misunderstandings followed by Sunny running away from Buck, him chasing her and begging for forgiveness (for shit he didn't actually do).
At one point in the book Sunny and Buck are almost caught in the act by Sunny's parents...because she still lives with them and is having sex with Buck in their house. Stuff like that is too much for me. I'm north of 30 and I just can't identify with sneaking around and avoiding parents. Another thing, Sunny gets mad at Buck and decides to go on a trip with her ex boyfriend from high school (so from two years ago). She refuses to bail on the trip even after she knows her anger against Buck was unjustified and Buck blames himself and lets her go. I just...I like extremely alpha heroes. None of my book boyfriends would ever stand back and watch their woman ride off with her ex over an imaginary offense he committed. I think I actually mentally checked out on this book after that scene.
This was not the right book for me, it was too much high school drama and too little adult romance. If NA is your thing, you can give this a try.
**ARC provided by Author**
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