dnf at 53%

I was promised enemies to lovers and this did not deliver! They weren't enemies at all, in fact they were barely even rivals. Add in the unnecessary ow/om drama and it's a recipe for a book that I'm not going to enjoy. I really tried to continue reading (I wanted to dnf at 10%) but in the end I just couldn't force myself through it. I feel bad for being so harsh but I think it is important to accurately represent what the book's about in the synopsis. Maybe if it had been marketed differently, I would have known what I was getting into and enjoyed it a bit more.

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘈𝘷𝘰𝘯 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘈𝘙𝘊.

I'm a big F1 fan and the first thing I'll say is that it's clear this was written from a place of love for the sport. Drive to Survive also reawakened my interest in F1 and I'm glad it's finally being made accessible to a wider audience (particularly women). If the MMC isn't based on Carlos Sainz then I'll eat my Aston Martin bucket hat. And so Offtrack offers the essential premise of: if a woman was driving in formula one today, what would that look like?

Enter Diana - a new rookie on the grid who's managed to snag a seat at one of the top 3 teams (for the F1 girlies out there, the equivalent would have been Nyck de Vries coming in and finding himself in a Red Bull). Unlikely, right? It's not like she'll be scoring podiums right away though. That would be ridiculous. Aha.

Naturally she faces a tonne of misogyny on and off the race track and, for the most part, this aspect of the novel is dealt with relatively well. I was genuinely so invested in the idea that she hails from Saudi Arabia (where women weren't allowed to drive until 2018), and that she doesn't come from a super wealthy/privileged background, though this is only briefly touched on. But back to the question at hand: if a woman was driving in formula one today, what would that look like?

According to Offtrack, she would look like A LOVE INTEREST!! Marketed as a simmering enemies-to-lovers romance, this could (at best) be described as a tentative rivals-to-friends-to-staring-at-each-other-during-press-conferences-dalliance. The chemistry is minimal, the dual-POV did little to aid my understanding of their attachment to one another beyond "she's an amazing person" and "he's hot, brings me snacks and calls me by my actual name". That's not even mentioning the fact that the FMC and MMC had amnesia about karting together just a handful of years ago. Or that the MMC begins the novel involved in some strange arranged marriage that makes little to no sense (beyond, I assume, an obstacle to him jumping on Diana straight away). Some of the plot points were just... baffling.

When it sticks to the drama of racing, and dealing with press conferences, rivalries, sponsorship deals and fighting for next season's seat, it's a fun enough narrative (if a little out of touch with real world F1 politics). But add in all the excess romantic sludge, stilted dialogue and randomly exploding tyres and the drive is assuredly more Latifi than Verstappen.

Thank you NetGalley and Avon Publishing for this free advance copy for an honest review.

Offtrack, by Esha Patel, is a feminist dream set in the fast paced world of Formula 1 racing. Diana Zahrani is the first female in Formula 1 and she’s breaking records and winning hearts. It’s an awesome idea, and I was excited to give it a read.

This story is so sweet and heartfelt. I felt like it inhabited its world a little awkwardly because of this. Maybe if they were contestants in a baking competition? I’m a huge fan of Drive To Survive, so I was hooked by the idea of this book, but it was missing the drama and raw sex appeal of the high stakes world which is Formula 1.

As I said, this is a really heartfelt story. You really get behind Diana and want her to win. She’s an underdog fighting battles on all fronts. Her immediate success is improbable, but the author has the right idea. A woman in Formula 1 wouldn’t be given the chance to make mistakes and build her career. No rookie would ever do as well as Diana does, but it makes for a good story, and I even got choked up at the end.

The characters of Miguel and Diana are very sweet. It’s all longing and love and almost no sizzle. This is a vanilla romance story. There’s one brief sex scene; there’s not even any heavy make out sessions or slow burn touches. It’s purely about the emotions, which is sweet, but I think it missed sex appeal, especially as it was trying to fit into the racing world.

I did enjoy the world of racing it inhabited. This was an easy read. The fast pace of the story and the building of drama over the different races kept me interested. The way Formula 1 operates is perfect for this kind of romance. There’s drama in almost everything that happens. And the forbidden romance adds some spice. I just wanted more sex appeal! I don’t expect smut, but a gripping slow burn like Mariana Zapata would definitely elevate this. I even wondered half way through if this was actually a YA instead of Romance, but the characters are a bit old to be YA.

This is no feminist rant, but it still gets its message across. Diana is a woman trying to force her way into a man’s world. There’s some great subtle moments that show this, like her getting her period for a race and the ignorance of her male competitors, or the way her past is weaponised against her, while the same is applauded in her male counterparts. The feminism at the start is not as subtle, and so I don’t think it worked as well, but Patel settles in and hits her stride. Some of the misogynistic male characters are very one dimensional unfortunately.

Miguel is the male main character, and again, the best way to describe him is sweet. He’s dressed up to be a partying playboy but I didn’t get that from his personality at all. I also didn’t understand his arranged marriage at the beginning. Also, this is only a note from personal experience. I currently live in Barcelona and Miguel’s family would most probably be Catalan, and speak that language, and refer to it as Catalonia, not Spain, but that’s not something you’d understand unless you lived here.

Overall I enjoyed Offtrack. It’s an easy read. It’s got a great feminist undertone, which is all wrapped up in a palatable sweet romance. Formula 1 is daring and sexy, so I’m kind of surprised at how unsexy this story was. Spice it up a bit more and I think we’d have a podium finish.

I really enjoyed this one. As a huge F1 fan I love finding books that are to do with the sport. Both characters were great & Esha wrote a storyline that kept me gripped. I feel like I’m guaranteed to love an F1 romance. This was super easy to read.

For starters this needs to be separated from the original version of this book. It's bringing down the average rating and that's not fair since this is an entirely new iteration of the book.

I really enjoyed the fact that this was a slow burn. They really took the time to get to know each other and become best friends. The fact that they raced together when they were younger is adorable. Diyana had to go through so much as a woman in f1 and I loved seeing her journey. She put up with so much and all she wanted to do was race. Miguel was there supporting her every step of the way.

I received an arc through netgalley.

I really enjoyed this book. The F1 setting is refreshing as a sports romance, it’s not completely unusual but it’s a good change from the hockey and football ones. I don’t know much about F1 but it was fun to read and I thought the author transcripted pretty well the pressure of the races.

Miguel and Diyana are both likeable characters, and I especially loved reading about Diyana’s carrier as a woman in a male dominated field. Their story was cute, however the one thing I didn’t like in the book is the Jatziry storyline. I don’t think it brought anything to the book, just extra pages which could have been cut. Despite that it was a great book, it’s just the one thing that really bothered me.

This was a 3.5 stars for me. The racing scenes were really fun! And I feel like the author is either a big fan of the sport or did an insane amount of research because it felt so real. However, I struggled to connect with the romance in this book. Individually. I liked the characters and I think the FMC was The perfect strong female lead. But I didn't feel sucked into their romance like I wanted to be. That being said, it was an enjoyable book and if you like F1 you'll probably enjoy this

Firstly, thank you the team at netgallery for letting me read this wonderful book early.
I really enjoyed offtrack, always love a duel PoV loved Miguel's character development during the book seeing him grow was delightful.

I feel like I was in it for the F1 and not the romance. The romance fell so flat for me, like I felt nothing for them and it didn’t feel like the romance was really deep, was more so lust. Even with the intimate scenes tho it didn’t feel very in depth just to get off..
The F1 and racing was great tho, was fun and interesting to read!

Unfortunately this book is a dnf at 34%

For some reason I just couldn’t get into the book no matter how hard I tried. I just didn’t know what I was reading, it just felt very forced with the F1 aspect and I’m just disappointed because I thought I would love it. This book wasn’t for me

I’m a *huge* fan of F1 - even my dog is named after an old Formula 1 icon. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to read a Formula 1 romance book 🏎 

The racing scenes in this book are done incredibly well - you can really tell that the author is a Formula 1 fan. I found myself caring about the outcomes of these fictional races with fictional teams 😅 It did have “Drive to Survive” style drama at times too, which really helped to keep my interest!

I was a little surprised with the romance in the book though. It’s being advertised as a rivals to lovers book, but I didn’t really feel rivalry between the two main characters in the book at all. Their relationship at the start felt quite platonic/friendly to me. I did feel plenty of rivalry between Diana and some of the other drivers on the grid and silly season was depicted quite well!

It was amazing to read about a woman making it into Formula 1 as a main driver - I really hope I get to see this happen. Even more, Diana is from an area where women weren’t even allowed to drive until this millennium. Her family was super supportive and I really enjoyed how she held her own in a very male dominated field. It explores the sexism and misogyny in motorsport and we saw how much harder Diana had to work to prove herself compared to her male colleagues.

The MMC, Miguel, comes from an established Formula 1 family and is top of his game. It was nice to see what an absolute softie/sweet guy he was. He has a relationship towards the beginning of the book with a woman through an arrangement with their families that he tries to make work. This felt like it didn’t quite fit in the story in my opinion, but it did show us the kind, non-competitive side of him.

I did enjoy the dual POV - dual POV is always my preference in books, I like knowing what both sides are feeling. Though I struggled with the pacing. There were some time jumps between the chapters, which makes sense when races are 1 to 2 weeks apart, but I think seeing more of what was going on between races would have helped their relationship feel more “real”. I also would have loved more spice, but that’s just personal preference! There is one scene, but it’s very short/surface level 🌶

If you love Formula 1, I think you’ll really like this.

the writing style wasn’t really for me there just seemed to be long paragraphs of unnecessary descriptions one minute then the next there was little to no detail. but i did enjoy the f1 aspects and it has become a recent interest of mine

Best book i have ever read , the romance is so cute and the author nailed it . For my f1 girlies go for it

I enjoyed this book quite a lot, especially as someone who had never paid much attention to F1 until picking this up. But I didn't enjoy it for its romance - I was more interested in the storyline. Diana is an incredible character and watching her arc and career unfold was much more enticing than the romance, which came across as almost forced and unnecessary. In my opinion, the two main characters worked better as close friends, and this book should've been a literary fiction rather than a romance.

I was super excited to read this, but unfortunately it was not quite what I expected. I really enjoy sports romances and I was excited to read one about F1. Some positives were definitely all the intense and action packed racing scenes and how it’s focused on Diana, the FMC, and how she is a female F1 driver. There is also Paula, Miguel’s sister, who is apart of his racing team and she was one of my favorite characters in the book.

The relationship between the main characters is definitely a slow burn which I liked ,but I wish there was more tension because I started to doubt why I wanted them to be together in the end and wasn’t as invested in their relationship. I think this book was definitely lacking in the romance aspect, which I was more looking forward to. I just did not think these main characters had chemistry and so I was not excited when they just got together more than half way through the book. Overall, I love the concept of this book and the strong female characters, but the rest just did not pull me in.

I'm a massive F1 fan, and I totally felt absorbed into the fast paced world of Formula 1 within the pages of this book.

It is clear that the nitty gritty of the racing has been well researched and I was cheering on our drivers in each race. But being a fan of the sport what slightly annoyed me was the inclusion of an Indian Grand Prix, there hasn't been one since 2013 in the country, and there certainly wasn't one in 2022, let alone on the sort of circuit that was being described, i've not even heard rumours of. And that took me out of the book and my enjoyment of the story while I tried to confirm my suspicions that this didn't exist.

After all if you are going to name a 2022 F1 race schedule, swapping out the real life Bahrain Grand Prix, for a fictional Indian one doesn't really make sense. The rest of the races I believe where there, but not necessarily in the right order. Jarred me slightly that there was a GP in Europe as only the second race of the season, they never move to Europe that soon, not even in the first proper season more or less fully back after the pandemic.

But honestly those are my only negatives and if you aren't a F1 fan those are things you would never pick up on.

What I did love is Diana, who manages to get an F1 seat for the season. Being an Arabic woman in a male dominated field, given she had grown up in Saudi Arabia where women weren't even able to drive until fairly recently, makes her an inspirational character and one that I wish existed in real life.

Some of what she faces and what she is trying to do with the sport, reminds me of things I've heard Lewis Hamilton say, while he tries to get more racial inclusion in the sport. But it's doubly hard as she is female and half the field were at least initially really horrible towards her.

Everything she has to put up with in the team and the sport felt incredibly realistic and entirely believable.

Then there is Miguel, out male lead, part of a F1 legacy family, it's in his blood. But he is passionate about the sport, and there is an instant connection between him and Diana. But he has a sort of arranged marriage coming up, and his priorities have changed a bit this season, making him grow up a bit.

I absolutely loved Miguel's sister Paula who who is a strong woman, and a race engineer, the one on the radio to him all race . I loved her in this role and it's another area that is women

There are occasional bits of exploring some of the destinations they are racing in which spoke to my armchair travel part of the brain, while the sport and racing thrilled me.

I just really hope one day there will be someone like Diana in F1, as it's what the sport needs.

This was an enjoyable book, and I'm always eager to read more stories set in the world of F1

Thank you to Avon and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

I’m a sucker for anything F1 related so this book was right up my alley. Also it is South Asian, yes please! I really liked this and I liked how it centred around a female driver.

If you are new to F1 I think this might be a really great introduction. Also, if you like slow burns perhaps this would be right up your alley. I thought the pacing was a bit slow in the beginning. I wonder if it was setup for a possible series because all the characters seem to have a POV and some things felt a bit open ended. The one thing that stuck out to me is how dangerous the sport can be and may impact your relationships.

I really wanted to love this book but unfortunately it just wasn’t quite for me. I love sports romance books and there were elements of this novel that I thought were strong, but overall it fell a little flat for me.

The twist with both main characters being F1 drivers was actually really interesting. I’ve only read F1 books before where it’s only been the guy as the driver, so I liked that unique twist to the story!

I didn’t really feel the chemistry between Diana and Miguel. It felt like they barely spent any time together and then were suddenly together. I got about 60-65% of the way through and there were barely any moments of communication between the characters that they liked each other. I sometimes like a slow burn but I do feel like their romance came a little out of nowhere.

What I will say is that this is very F1 heavy, so if you’re a sports lover and have a real interest and love in F1, you really will love those elements of the book! They were actually some of my favourite moments, especially having a female F1 driver!

I personally think that we need to leave third act breakups in the past unless there’s a real significance to the story for it to be there, because I’m still wondering why there was a third act breakup in this book. It felt very confusing and was just another example of the lack of communication.

Overall, there were elements to the story that I enjoyed, as mentioned above, however this wouldn’t be an F1 *romance* that I’d recommend. If this was marketed as more of an F1 story and then there happens to be romance included, my rating might have been higher and I may have gone into the book with a different mindset, but the romance plot fell short.

Okay so let me start by saying i love a sports romance like every other girly HOWEVER the amount of car jargon that flew over my head with this one was a bit much lol. I did like the relationship but felt it focused a little too much on certain parts than others.

Thanks so much for letting me ARC!