A cute hockey romance with plenty of chaos, but to be honest, the goats were the characters I was most invested in. 🐐🏒😂

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🏒 The Premise

Oh, Say Can You See by J.P. Sterling is a cute, lighthearted hockey romance with a fake-dating setup, a politician mother who strongly disapproves of hockey players, and three absolutely chaotic pet goats. Childhood friends Tyson and Lottie have had feelings for each other for a while, but have struggled to express those feelings to one another. That changes when Tyson is called upon to go to Washington, D.C. and to captain and play on an all-star team for America’s 250th birthday. But when Lottie needs to start fake dating someone (someone who is not a hockey player), Tyson agrees to help her.

There were definitely elements of the story I enjoyed, and overall, I would describe the book as cute. Unfortunately, I never became particularly invested in the characters or their relationships.

One of my biggest disappointments was the hockey-team dynamic—or lack thereof. With the exception of a few nameless/faceless pranks, you don’t see a lot of the team dynamic on or off the ice. One of the things I love about sports romance is when the team becomes part of the world of the book. I want the camaraderie, the friendships, and the individual personalities that make me care about the other players even when they aren’t the focus of the story.

I never really got that here. There wasn’t much team spirit or camaraderie that made me care about the hero’s teammates, and none of the other players stood out enough for me to become invested in them.

The notable exception to my lack of attachment to the supporting cast? The heroine’s three pet goats: Cinnamon, Toast, and Crunch. They are complete catastrophes, cause chaos whenever given the opportunity, and I loved them.

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💕 The Dynamic

Unfortunately, the romance didn’t quite work for me either.

Both the hero and heroine are supposed to be young adults in their early twenties, but they frequently came across as much younger. There’s nothing inherently unbelievable about two adults being shy or afraid to tell each other how they feel. Here, however, their dialogue, reactions, and inability to communicate often felt more adolescent than simply shy or inexperienced. It gave me the impression that these characters should have been written as teenagers rather than adults in their early twenties..

That feeling extended to some of the supporting characters as well. In particular, the heroine’s brother reacts to discovering that his friend likes his sister with an almost “ewww, you like my sister?!” attitude that felt more appropriate for a child than an adult.

I also struggled with the fake-dating plot. Fake dating can be such a fun trope when there’s a compelling reason the characters need to pretend to be together, but I never really bought into the reasoning here. The Politician mom is caught saying an inflammatory comment and decides that the best way to fix the problem is to force her daughter to fake date somebody body so that the media forgets her comment about hockey. Instead of the fake date scheme being used to push the hero and heroine together, it instead pushes the heroine with another character together as a pointless attempt to draw the heat off of the Politician. Instead of feeling like the circumstances naturally pushed these two people into fake dating, it felt like the story needed characters to fake date because that was the trope.

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🎧 The Audiobook

I listened to the audiobook edition, performed in duet by Kasey Miracle and Kyle Snyder, and really enjoyed their narration. They brought the characters to life and narrated the story beautifully. While I had some issues with the story itself, the narration was definitely a highlight of my experience with the book.

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✨ Final Thoughts

Overall, Oh, Say Can You See was cute, but it never really grabbed me. I didn’t necessarily dislike the hero and heroine, but I also never became particularly attached to either of them, and I actively disliked many of the supporting characters (such as the mother).

Some of the conflict also felt underdeveloped. While the book makes it clear that the Politician mother has a strong dislike of hockey and hockey players, the hatred she expresses comes across as unexplained and unsupported. An explanation eventually comes, but it essentially amounts to the hero reminding her of someone from her past who left her. For me, that felt like a throwaway explanation rather than enough justification for the level of hostility we’d seen from her throughout the story.

Between the characters frequently behaving younger than their stated ages, the fake-dating setup that never completely made sense to me, the lack of a strong team dynamic, and conflicts that felt manufactured rather than organic, I struggled to become emotionally invested in the story.

There are still plenty of cute moments, and readers looking for a very light, cutesy hockey romance may have a different experience with this one.

This is also a great book for any Fourth of July or U.S. Flag on the cover book reading challenges.

And, for the record, the three disaster goats get five stars. 🐐🐐🐐

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🔥 Rating & Spice Level

🌶️ Spice Level: 🌶️

⭐️ Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

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📚 Where to Read

👉 Pick up a copy today!

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