Any way you slice it by Kristine Carlson Asseline



I absolutely fell in love with this book and the authors writing style!! It’s a fast pass keep younon your toes storyline!! I can’t wait to read more about all of these characters!! 5 Stars!!

A very sweet sport YA. If you love YA and you love Hockey (and pizza..LOL), then this is one for you. Kristine Carlson Asselin is a new to me author. I was surprised how much I loved this book. Penelope and Jake were amazing. I love the underdog aspect and who doesn't love pizza too. I rooted for them. A very cute read. I can't wait to see what else Kristine Carlson Asselin has in stored.

Any Way You Slice It
Kristine Carlson Asselin
My Review: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

What a perfect slice of pie or should I say pizza. Any way you slice it reads like a movie and I loved every minute of it.

•Underdog hockey team- check
•Romance-check
•Family with a perfect dynamic- check
•Misunderstood bad boy- check
•Warm and fuzzies- double check. This book ticked all the right boxes for me.

Penelope loves to Ice skate, but her overprotective father forbids her to entertain the idea of playing hockey. He believes it is too dangerous. Penelope's dad has his own sights set on her future and wants her to continue the family legacy. Slice is the best pizza house around and Penelope is already dedicated to helping out. She just needs a break. Something to call her own.

Cue the towns bad boy, Jake with a dare that involves holding a hockey stick and Penelope is hooked. She joins the Rink Rats, a misfit hockey team who haven't won a game in years. They need Pen even if she is a novice. Jake and Penelope used to be best friends until it all went wrong. Now Penelope is doubting everything she thought she knew about him and can't help swooning over his good lucks.

This book had so much to offer and I was hooked on every word. I loved the family relationships and extended family business relationships. The hockey and friendships were good. Pen and Jake were perfect for each other. The story was everything I look for in a good book. 5 stars out of 5.

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review* Awesome book!!

Paperback, 225 pages
Expected publication: November 15th 2017 by Wicked Whale Publishing

Ice hockey. Cute romance. Pizza. What more could you want? Any Way You Slice It is the perfect light-hearted YA contemporary.

For Penelope, skating gives her a break from school and endlessly working at her family's pizza restaurant. When Jake, resident bad boy and her old friend turned we-don't-speak-anymore-because-of-that-6th-grade-incident enemy, asks Pen to join their recreational ice hockey team, Pen surprises herself by considering it. But she knows her father will never let her play hockey, especially now when he is solely focused on getting their restaurant on a (sure-to-be-humiliating) TV show. But Pen can't resist the game or Jake's company and soon she is wrapped up in a tangle of lies, which, if she doesn't manage a spectacular interception soon, is set to be revealed on national TV.

Every now and again I love sinking into a low-drama, high-fun novel, and Any Way You Slice It suited perfectly. And actually there is quite a bit of drama, but it's all light-hearted. Penelope spends the majority of the book lying to various family members and friends. She is stressed, I was stressed! That emotional tightrope of wanting something so badly combined with knowing if your family discovered your secret there would be no way they would let you continue, is captured so well in this book. Pen is a relatable character. She doesn't want to lie and that prevents this novel from becoming too melodramatic. She loves her family, even if she questions her father's overprotectiveness.

The romance is very sweet. Jake and Penelope were once friends and became sort-of enemies in middle-school. Both are older now and ready to look past mistakes and misunderstandings. They make a very cute couple, and there are not too many bumps in the road to their renewed friendship and romantic relationship, which I really enjoyed.

Of course, aside of pizza (which made me very hungry), light family drama, and cute romance, the main focus of this book is ice hockey. I've come to really enjoy sports books and Any Way You Slice It was no exception. In fact, I would have liked more scenes to be set at the team's practice or games. I loved the way Pen slowly becomes a part of the team, and how her fellow team members change how they view her. The ending was predictably awesome, which I loved!!

If you are looking for a fun, sport-centred, pizza-heavy YA contemporary, then Any Way You Slice It is the book for you.

The publishers provided an advanced readers copy of this book for reviewing purposes. All opinions are my own.

Never ever did I think I would write this, but DNF at 10%.
This physically hurt to read. It was like reading some half-assed fanfiction. Replace Jake with Harry Styles and Pen with yourself and voila! I tried on multiple occasions to give this book a chance, especially since it sounded so intriguing with the hockey angle, but it did not deliver. Lines like "Whoa, when did his eyes get so intense," made me cringe so hard. And the last straw was the fact that the pizza restaurant was called Slice, and the author had the audacity to write, "If the restaurant wasn't called Slice (as in a slice of pizza)." I am not stupid, neither are the readers, so don't treat us like we're six years old. I hate that I'm even leaving a review at all because it's not helpful. Maybe I'll try it another time, but it was not working for me today.

This slightly missed the mark for me.

Penelope Spauldings' family run a pizza restaurant, the best pizza restaurant in her small town, called the Slice. She feels weighed down by her father's ambitions, which are for her to go to culinary school and then help him set up a pizza empire, heck she already works 30 hours a week at the restaurant as well as go to school. Her only me time is when she skates at the local rink in free skate time, but her father would kill her if she ever played hockey.

Penelope used to be best friends with Jake, until 'the incident' when they were eight years old, now they never speak and Jake is most definitely a bad boy(view spoiler). One day whilst skating alone Penelope in knocked into the side of the rink by Jake to stop her from running over a small child, he then goads her into trying to score a goal and invites her to play for his ice-hockey team, the Rink Rats.

Meantime, Penelope's dad has got them a slot on a reality TV show called Local Flavor which specialises in filming small local outlets and allowing viewers to tweet live comments on the show.

Add in the Varsity hockey team led by (boo hiss) Warren, Jake's arch nemesis and you have a whole cocktail of teen angst reminiscent of a classic John Hughes movie. Only it never quite happens. The emphasis is strongly on the hockey, but even then we don't really get many matches, its mainly training. The reality TV section is a bit of a on-hit wonder, even Penelope's confrontation with her father over playing hockey is fairly short and muted.

Perhaps my complaints are because I'm an adult woman reading a YA book and maybe a 14 year old would find this entirely the right length and level of detail.

Anyway, this was a sweet YA sports romance.

Penelope and Jake were friends as kids until the incident at school. Pen's parents own a pizza place so she doesn't have much time to do anything else, but her hobby is ice skating. Everything changes when Jake suggests trying hockey - from this time on Pen can't forget the thrill she felt when she scored a goal. Sounds uncomplicated? Well, Pen's dad forbid playing hockey ever. How will she overcome the odds? Can Jake and Pen be friends again?
I love books about ice hockey and ice skating in general and a bit of romance gives it a really nice feel. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because I believe that there could more of funny dialogues between Jake and Pen, but reading the book you have the feeling that most part fill the descriptions of the situations rather that exchanges between the characters. I recommend it to all the ice skating fans!