I adore the enemies to lovers trope, and this read exceeded my expectations. Long-time athletic competitors and teammates with oil and water personalities forced to be roommates?!? 🥵. The tension (and match shouting) was off the chart between Lucas and Oliver! I loved the collar-grabbing and lick-lipping tension, but was completely enamored by each man’s backstory and family connections. This was a fun setting sport’s romance that literally had me near tears by the end. Kudos to the author for creating such fun lead main characters with enough depth and heart to have you googling the names of gymnastics flips and ordering team GB merch. 😂.

This enemies-to-lovers romance about two British gymnasts was a fun read that made me want to keep turning the pages, but was let down by a few issues that stopped it from being a top-tier read.

I liked Lucas as a character - his determination to succeed, his struggles with fitting in, his love for his family - and was rooting for him from the off.

Oliver took me more time to warm-up to (as an introvert, his insistence on Lucas having to socialise more at the beginning was rather annoying) but he becomes a lot more likeable once the two are together.

I did enjoy their developing relationship and they had some really sweet moments together. I loved the part about them pushing their beds together, for example. (I saw the author describe this on Twitter as 'only one bed, with a twist' which made me chuckle.)

This book also talks about being outed against your will (Oliver is outed in the tabloids) and handles that topic really well, stressing how messed up it is, and later giving him a chance to reclaim his own narrative.

However, there were a few things that kept pulling me out of the story:

There were several continuity issues. For example, there's a bit where the coach says he'll see them before breakfast the next day for training and then the next morning they go on a tourist trip around Paris instead. And whilst I enjoyed reading about them and their friends having fun and doing tourist-y things, I was just a little thrown when I'd expected the day to start with an early morning training session. Re-reading that scene whilst writing this review, it's possible that we skipped a day, but if that's the case it wasn't very clear.

Oliver's shoulder injury seems to come out of the blue. There's mention of him being previously injured but there's nothing (or at least nothing I registered) that hinted that it was still playing up until halfway in when its suddenly really painful and a massive issue for him.

Sometimes the two POVs were a bit too similar sounding, so I occasionally had issues remembering which POV I was reading until the other name was mentioned.

This is small nitpick but why are these British characters written by a (I believe) British author saying Mom?

Another thing that I think should be noted is that Oliver's backstory is quite dark (his pregnant GF died in a car crash when picking up his uniform and since no one know they were dating he couldn't publicly grieve) and, whilst it is discussed as a traumatic thing, it feels a little out of place in what is quite a cutesy romance, which doesn't have the space to truly unpack the effect a trauma like that would have on a character.

Honestly, this has a vibe that the publishers rushed to publish it instead of putting the work in to edit it and make sure it was at the highest possible standard for publication. Which is such a shame because it was a great idea and there are some really lovely moments within it, and it has such potential to be an amazing read, it just needed a little more polish.

(Also, this was an ARC copy, so it may be some of the issues I noticed have been tidied up prior to its proper publication.)

Overall though, there was still a lot to like here as well, and if you are a lover of queer sports romance this could still be a book you enjoy!

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Caffery put together a romance novel that, while it did follow the path that most romance novels take, covered a different perspective. We got an inside glimpse at life at the Olympics. We felt the pain of the characters as drama, injuries, and love unfolded.
My biggest downside was the fact that I myself am not a gymnast. I struggled a bit with all the terms, like the names of the tricks (for lack of a better word). I would have appreciated a bit more detail on what those were so that I may have been better able to picture them.
Overall, it was a quick and delightful read and I would recommend to anyone looking for a queer romance. Well done.

I don't read much sports romance, but I requested this on NetGalley because I always love watching the gymnastics during the Olympics. There was no way I could pass up the chance to read a romance story with Olympic gymnasts that was both queer and enemies to lovers. The tropes in this book were right up my alley (forced proximity, shared bed, rivals, opposites attract, secret relationship), but the execution faltered a bit and left me somewhat underwhelmed.

Specifically, the writing and pacing were quite rough at times. I had to read some of it multiple times to grasp the meaning of certain sentences, and there were some inconsistencies in the story. For example, one of the characters started worrying about whether the love interest had spilled about their relationship to some friends even though a page earlier he was recollecting that one of the friends walked in while the two of them were in bed together. Why was he worrying so much if at least one of them knew already? There was also an instance where Lucas's sister couldn't get off work because she was a nurse, and then later in the story she's able to attend the games because someone gave her the money even though it was implied earlier she had to stay to work her shifts. Little things like those inconsistencies just irked me and took me out of the story. In general, the pacing was a bit off, as well, and I had a hard time following the timeline at certain points.

The romance was cute with a moderate amount of steam. The author seemed a bit obsessed about the characters running their fingers through each others' hair because it was mentioned in almost every scene with any type of intimacy. The pace of the relationship was a bit strange, as well. I don't know if I'd call it insta-love since they'd known, and hated, each other for five years, but they jumped in bed together pretty quickly once they were stuck in a room together. I would've enjoyed a bit more build up and sexual tension at first, but once they were together I enjoyed their dynamic and seeing how their relationship grew.

As for the characters, I liked them and enjoyed their respective plots outside of the romance. They each had personal things they were dealing with, and their relationship helped them grow and face those things in a healthier way. Lucas and Oliver really did complement each other very well, but their alternating POVs were too similar in voice to really tell them apart. This made them seem less three-dimensional than they could have been. The rest of the cast was good, as well, but they were all fairly one-dimensional.

The final issue I had with this book was its descriptiveness, or lack thereof. If I didn't know what the Olympics or gymnastics routines were like, the descriptions in this book would have likely left me confused. It used a lot of technical sports language without much accompanying explanation. I was able to fill in the blanks in my head, but I doubt everyone will be able to do that if they're not familiar with the subject matter to some degree.

All of that being said, I did still have fun reading this one. If you are looking for a quick, easy sports romance that is entertaining despite its flaws, you might like this book, especially if you are looking for bi male rep and a coming out story too. I loved the idea of this book and wish everything had been perfect, but I still enjoyed following these boys around Paris even though the story didn't feel like it reached its full potential. Therefore, I rate this book 3 out of 5 stars.

3.5

This book was so cute. I loved the relationship between the characters. I really hope this author writes a second book in this series. Because I would love to see what happens next for these characters. Such a cute read.

When I went into this book, I did so thinking that I was going to love it: Red, White and Royal Blue meets Boyfriend Material? Sign me up. Unfortunately, it completely missed the mark for me and instead of being unable to put it down, it was all I wanted to do.

First: the characters. They were...fine. I actually think that I would probably have liked them if it weren't for the fact that their voices were near indistinguishable from each other. Without the chapter headers telling us whos P.O.V it was, I'm not sure that I would be able to tell who's chapter I was reading. (Also them being called Lucas and Oliver made me feel like I was reading a bad Boyfriend Material fanfic)

I also wasn't sold on the enemies-to-lovers trope. I never felt like they were enemies - they were just co-workers who didn't really get on, and that's just life. I also felt that the 'lovers' bit came too quickly. I needed more tension and build up.

As for the Olympic aspect of it: I didn't buy it. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I'm an athlete or indeed know anything about the Olympics, but I don't believe that athletes are able to drink/go on long days out around the host city mere weeks/days before their event. Nor do I believe that they would be able to get tattoos. Surely they have a stricter schedule than that?

I think this book will find it's audience, I'm just not part of it. And that's really annoying, because I think that this has a lot of potential. It just feels like a first draft that's in desperate need of editing.

*To our Lord NetGalley I praise and thank for providing me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review*

This has been a disaster. I came here thinking I would read a nice story about grown up atletes with a cozy romance and an interesting insight of how the Olympics (or at least the dynamic in trainings) work. Sadly, I got nothing of that.
Hear me out, this novel is a compendium of clichés where most main characters are between 24 and 26 years old yet they all behave as if they were 15. They all think with their crotch and I´m not even kidding, what are their hobbies or the things they like? I couldn´t even tell even if you directed this questions to what the main character´s hobbies are. And that´s because reading the novel we see nothing at all. Even when we direct out attention towards the sport they practice, this book is 5% of sports and 95% of all characters talking about romance or trying to ship Oliver and Lucas for no reason at all... and nothing else. It´s like no one has a life outside that circle.
Oh, and the enemies to lovers is another thing that pissed me off. Say, does anyone of you know why the hell they got along badly? Because I didn´t understand. All the book mentions is some kind of physical fight... And then the fact that they´re so different from each other (which makes absolutely no sense, for fvck´s sake, you don´t go around punching people for not being like you, much less spend your time ignoring or saying you don´t get along with someone when you´re in the freaking same team in the Olympics).
But then again, no surprises whatsoever.
Oliver is the cliché of a sportsman: Handsome and popular. I thought he was nice at first, but my impression of him changed the second we switched from conciliator captain of the team to 100% horny teenager (am I the only person who thought the first sexual encounter he had with Oliver was pretty close to abuse? Because Lucas verbally said he wasn´t sure about doing that, and Oliver convinced him). Also, another problem I had with Oliver is that I found him quite unbeliavable (well, not only him, more characters), to be specific in this case, because of all the trauma with his ex. Like, are you seriousle trying to make me believe a person who lost his partner in such an abrupt and tragic way not only is ready to start something with someone else so soon but also has no quarrels to proposing a relationship of friends with benefits with someone who isn´t even sure of what he wants? Excuse me, but wtf is this.
Lucas is the cliché of uncomprehended gay nerd. I never understood why his love and sexual life was the focus of the entire story. Like, not only when speaking with his friends and family, but also to the exterior world. Like, hello? It´s 2023! Stop fetishizing gay people. Why the need to know who they hook up with? Would you do that with a hetero person? Dude, when I got to the part where the press releases the fact Oliver and Lucas are sort of dating I was thinking, "and why tf would I care?" even when I literally read almost 200 pages of them both and was supposed to care (only in theory, you see).
Also, what´s with Lucas as a character? He was such a brat since the beginning! He had no intention of getting along with his teammates (which I found extremely weird even though I don´t practice any sport, is it normal to send a team who doesn´t get along well to a competition? Let alone the Olympics, this doesn´t seem professional to me). But the thing is that not only Lucas doesn´t even try, is that there´s a lot of times during the plot when it looks like he´s not even interested in his career as atlete. As if he were there just for the sake of being. That and behaving like a martyr (I was so put off with this, personally), acting like: "poor me, I have to be an atlete in the Olympics because I need to provide for my mother and sisters, cause my dad left when I was a kid and we were so poor". Like, duuuuude! How much are you getting paid right now? What are your wages? Also your twin sis works as a nurse. Your mother owns a pub. Are you telling me you guys are still poor and cannot even aford a couple of plane tickets and an hotel room for two weeks? Fvck off.
Anyway, I´ll stop with my rambling now.
Overall I found this book disrespectful to anyone who actually practices any sports at all but... I think if you like YA you might enjoy it nonetheless because it´s easy to read.

Lucas is fine with being the one member of the Great Britain men's gymnastics Olympic team who isn't close with the others. He's in grad school and supporting his family, and he really doesn't like the team captain Oliver, so he's fine sticking to himself. Until they get to the Olympics and he's made to room with Oliver. As usual, the two butt heads pretty hard... until one of their altercations finds Lucas backed against the wall, with Oliver inches from his face, looking like he wants to kiss Lucas. Oliver knows that Lucas is gay, and that he himself is bisexual (though nobody else knows it), but what he hadn't realized until now is that some of the tension between the two of them is attraction... and that he really wants to act on it.
Over the next couple of weeks, Lucas and Oliver settle into an arrangement they're calling friends with benefits. But they both start to feel like maybe there's something more between them.

I wish there had been just a little more time spent on that tipping point between them hating each other and deciding to go for it-- it felt a bit rushed, and I would have loved to see a bit more of each of them struggling a little to accept the change. Other than that, though, I really liked this book. It was fun, and sweet, and had some really strong external conflict that bled into the relationship itself in a really organic way. I'm not usually a fan of the third act breakup but this one felt organic and the RIGHT kind of frustrating.

In Olympic Enemies, we follow two male gymnasts, Oliver and Lucas, as they prepare to compete in the Paris 2024 Olympics. Despite their contentious relationship as teammates for Great Britain, Oliver and Lucas are assigned as roommates and spend the next three weeks learning more about each other, leading to an understanding and eventually developing into a heartfelt relationship.

I really enjoyed Oliver and Lucas as the main characters, and as someone who religiously watched gymnastics every Olympics, this setting was perfect! I loved that the story was dual POV, and I thought that the writing flowed easily.

I usually don't mind cultural references in contemporary romances, but the Brooklyn Nine-Nine references felt like there were on every other page and took me out of the narrative at times. The switch from arguing to kissing was also very abrupt and there could've been more time developing a friendship between Lucas and Oliver before they took that leap.

Hopefully, we get a sequel with Tom and Alicia!

Thank you to The Wild Rose Press and Netgalley for a copy of the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

There was so much I was excited about in Olympic Enemies, but ultimately it didn't deliver a satisfying reading experience.

Connection with the characters is always the biggest factor for me in a book, and while the characters were the strongest part of the book, it wasn't enough to carry the entire thing. I wanted to care about Oliver and Lucas so badly, but ultimately the inconsistencies, the constant one step forward and two steps back of their relationship, and the poor quality of writing overshadowed any affection I could have for the characters or their relationship.

While it wasn't unreadable, if this hadn't been an ARC I probably wouldn't have read past the first chapter. It seems like the book could have been made a lot better with a better editor, especially in terms of creating better pacing of the plot, and so it's really a shame that a story with potential like this fell so flat.

An enemies to lovers queer love story of Olympic hopefuls. I love everything gymnastics and to have a love story within it was amazing. Lucas and Oliver were teammates and roommates at the Olympics. They never got along until they were paired up as roommates. The romance and friendship unfolded in a beautiful way. I loved Lucas and Oliver together. They were so cute together. The emotional, physical and mental hardships to be an athlete and being queer was understandably difficult. Which was sad. Love is love.

Now to the parts where I’m in the minority for sure on my review.

I had a few oh no about the rest of the story. One was that the scenes were not consistent. For instance they were going to the gym to practice and then they were off to their room without actually practicing their skills. For Olympic hopefuls that seemed unlikely especially with their coaches around. Also since I’m a huge fan of gymnastics I know how the Olympics showcase the events. The author decided to switch them around and I wasn’t a big fan of that. I started to pick apart some of the apparatus skills or events because she wasn’t correct on some of them. Which took away the joy in reading this story. There was also a degrading word used for being small that I won’t repeat but it was very offensive. I understand I may be sensitive to the word but why use it to describe someone who was 5 ft tall? Again, that was my opinion.

The ending felt unfinished. Like I would love to know what happened to Lucas and Oliver in six months time.

Overall, I enjoyed the love story itself but everything else was a bit of a mess and I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I would have loved to.

I received this ARC from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

Oliver and Lucas don't get along—they never have. Lucas has a chip on his shoulder the size of Wales and resents the fact that his gymnastics teammates haven't had to do as much has he has to get by; Oliver, as team captain, resents the fact that Lucas doesn't want to be best mates with the rest of the team.

I'm no gymnastics expert: I took a gymnastics class as a kid and was fast-tracked into the "you are too incompetent to ever turn a cartwheel" group (literally, they taught us "modified cartwheels" because they didn't think we had the talent for anything more complex), and that was the end of my gymnastics career. But I have a soft spot for gymnastics books, and it's rare to find one about men's gymnastics. The difference is fascinating to me for a couple of reasons, starting with that gymnastics is a rare sport in which women get more attention than men...but also because male gymnasts, who are usually older than female gymnasts, often get a very different training approach—they're allowed to have things like friends, and opinions, and maybe even occasional carbs. (They have some sport-specific similarities, too, like small stature—successful gymnasts tend to be on the short side because being short makes rotating midair easier. Something to do with center of gravity and other physics-related things!)

So here we have a book about two male gymnasts (plus their teammates), complete with pommel horse and rings. It will resonate well with fans of enemies-to-lovers books, I think; there's a great deal of screaming at each other and smoldering gazes before they get on with the boinking. For people more interested in gymnastics, though, I'd probably take a pass—it was hard to believe that these Olympic athletes in a body-focused sport were, well, Olympic athletes in a body-focused sport. A bit too much gorging on fast food, getting drunk as a skunk just days before competition, and the coach(!) covering for Oliver and Lucas when they bailed on practice(!), at least for my tastes. This is a book in which the heroes are tall and strapping, as befits a romance novel, but not necessarily as befits a book about gymnasts. My priority is the characters flipping through the air, but if your priority is the characters flipping out, flipping each other off, and then flipping naked into bed, this might be a better fit for you.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a free review copy through NetGalley.

I liked this book. It was light, sweet had some nice relationship growth and moments of real vulnerability. I appreciated that is was very low drama and really focused more on the teamwork aspect of the sport and the vulnerability of coming out.

Nice, fun, quick read.

As a former athlete and someone who religiously watches the summer Olympics, I was super excited when I read the book description. The plot was unique and I’m always a sucker for a good enemies to lovers trope.

Unfortunately, this book just didn’t deliver the way I was hoping it would. To me, it read a bit like a fan fiction and the relationship between Lucas and Oliver had my head spinning. Every time I thought their relationship and communication was solidifying, something new would happen and any progress they made was gone.

I also felt the author introduced a lot of events in Lucas’ and Oliver’s lives that warranted further exploration and would have aided in character development, but just wasn’t done (see my full review on Goodreads and StoryGraph for more details with spoilers).

This was a fast paced read and I finished it in 2 days. I would recommend it to someone who enjoys fanfics and the Olympics. There was definitely character growth for both Oliver and Lucas, which I really enjoyed. I also liked the side characters (for the post part).

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Backlit PR for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Thanks to NetGalley for proving me with an arc!]

5 ⭐️

Maybe a little bit generous, but so what? This book made me feel things and I loved it!!!

This was such a sweet read! I think the author developed a proper amount of depth for all the characters that made them incredibly lovable. There was chemistry since the beginning for the two main male characters, and they played off each other really well throughout the book, it got spicier quicker than I imagined, but it wasn’t very descriptive and more or less just said what event had occurred. I liked the friendship that worked throughout the book and I think the banter had me smiling most of the way through the book as well. I loved the Olympic backdrop throughout the book, and while I can’t vouch for understanding any of the gymnastics from a non-gymnastics perspective, it read really well, and it wasn’t too terribly confusing, but not knowing certain gymnastic terminology. The journey the two men took was cute and inspiring, and I look forward to seeing more from this author. 4.5⭐️, 2🌶

Serious issue with the cover however. If the book describes Lucas’ curls and how much Oliver loves them, why is his hair straight on the cover?!

I loved this book so much. This has always been one of my favorite tropes, even though it can get a bit overused. However, Rebecca wrote it perfectly.

The friendships between the characters grew into something I ended up loving. Well... I guess between Oliver and Lucas it was more than friendship, but never the less, I loved it.
4.75/5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC copy of this book.

When I saw the description/blurb on this book I instantly wanted to read it. MM, enemies to lovers, and the Olympics. What more could you ask for? While I did enjoy the story, I did also feel like parts of it weren't as developed as they could have been. The side characters in this book were great and I felt like individually Oliver and Lucas were great, but it almost felt like they got together too quickly/easily. Their was just some little spark missing from their connection that I was looking for. I felt like the plot was strong, and maybe needed to be developed a bit more but it was a great plotline.

I did feel like some of the book was hard to understand exactly what was being said, but that was because I felt that the characters used a lot of British slang-which completely made sense for the book seeing as it was the men's GB gymnastics team. It was just something I noticed.

I believe this is one of the author's first few books they have written, and I thought it was a strong start. I look forward to seeing them continue to grow as an author and would definitely read more from them again!

I really enjoyed this one. Excellent pacing, likeable characters, believable romance, and a unique setting. I quite enjoyed the blend of sports and Olympic pagentry with contemporary romance (and I am NOT a sports person). The Olympic Village made for a fun and unique setting, however, I felt that their location in Paris was a bit wasted. Beyond only a couple outings, the characters barely explored any of the city they were in. Maybe this is normal for Olympic athletes with their busy training schedule, but I think the romance of Paris could have better used. Beyond that, my only other critique is that the sex life of our main characters felt pretty unrealistic. I get that they're young and in love, and in peak physical shape, but they seemed to be getting it on every time they were alone, which was a lot. Don't get me wrong, I love the spice, but it didn't feel as realistic to me as the actual enemies to friends-with-benefits to boyfriend romance did. Overall, I really enjoyed this read. It made me laugh out loud at times, smile at the cute moments (and squirm at the cutest). It was a great beach read and exactly what I was looking for on vacation.

I wanted to love this but the pacing was just so off and the characters just so unlikeable! The spice was odd as well some scenes (oral) were detailed the sex was fade to black. They felt rushed. Overall I think this could just use some heavy editing