Book Review: ‘Collide’ by Bal Khabra (the next best thing to ‘Icebreaker’?)

I go through phases of reading college sports romances and nothing else. It's hockey and football and <insert collegiate sport> or nada. And a good time is had, as a rule.

Now, I've had ‘Icebreaker' since release but I just wasn't feeling it at the time. But 2024 is already shaping up to be the Year of Binge Reading and it was one of my first targets. The thing is, as I spoke about in my review last week, ‘Icebreaker' is one of those special books that can scratch that itch with absolute precision.

‘Collide' by Bal Khabra kept popping up in my “readers also enjoyed” sections and I'd seen it on multiple lists so I (a little begrudgingly) spent the £1.29 to download it onto my Kindle (FYI as I type this it's now only 99p!).

Here's the summary:

“An ultimatum from her professor thrusts Summer Preston into an unexpected collision with hockey captain Aiden Crawford. She’s caught in a delicate balance between fulfilling her lifelong dream of becoming a sport psychologist and veering far away from this god-awful sport.

For Aiden Crawford, being the captain of the college hockey team has its perks, except when a reckless mistake by his team threatens to jeopardize their entire season. Consequently, his coach nominates him as the subject of a research paper. It's the last thing he wants to do, especially since the girl leading the project looks like she could wield his skates as a weapon.

Summer can't stand his blasé approach to life, and Aiden doesn't understand her uptight, scheduled one. They are off to a rocky start, and provoking each other is what they do best, but defeat isn't something either of them is willing to accept.”

I'll go ahead and say it now: ‘Collide’ is not ‘Icebreaker’. So if you're looking for a similar experience then this isn't it.

There was a lot I liked about ‘Collide', I liked the switch-around of the grumpy/sunshine trope and there were enough touchpoints of the genre to keep it firmly rooted.

Aiden is a babe. He's a gem. And quite frankly, deserves a medal for putting up with Summer's nonsense.

Summer is my main gripe with this book. The thing about grumpy/sunshine is that the “grumpy” half of the relationship comes around and, actually, is usually pretty “nice” to the “sunshine” half.

What I'm saying is Summer just isn't very nice to Aiden. Except maybe when she's drunk, or when they're having sex. Otherwise, she's repeatedly mean to him, but the guy is such a stalwart simp and keeps taking it.

For me, her constant dismissal of his feelings, the way his wants and desires and needs are hardly considered, and the way he keeps caring for her, even when she's being rotten to him… it left a bad taste in my mouth.

There's an encouraging amount of diversity in this book, and overall I enjoyed the cast of characters.

‘Collide' is easy to read, and I think if you're looking for books in this genre, it's definitely worth a go. But just being careful to note that the chracterisation is sometimes difficult to reconcile with.

Hockey? Check. Hot boys? Check. Spicy? Check.

And coupled with that cover, I can see this becoming a staple on lists that recommend this genre.

Written by Sarah