Role Model (GameChangers #5)

This series (Rachel Reid's Game Changers) was my first introduction to the queer erotica genre. It also taught me that there is soooooo much more to this genre than just the steamy sex stuff. It's deep and meaningful and tackles topics that any other genre can, just with a little rated-r fun. ;) It also happens that this is one of my favorite series. The fifth book is titled "Role Model."

["Troy Barrett has been freshly traded to Ottawa after calling out Dallas Kent during a team practice. He wants to be a better person, and the weird, scrappy energy of the struggling Ottawa team seems like the place to...well. It seems like the only place that will have Troy right now.

Fortunately the Ottawa team includes Ilya Rozanov and Wyatt Hayes, and also includes an adorable social media manager, Harris Drover. Harris is the opposite of Troy in every way: friendly, cheerful, chatty, and goofy with a booming voice, a startlingly loud laugh, and Pride pins all over his denim jacket. Definitely not the sort of person Troy would normally associate with, and yet…"]

This book was really hard to read. Because Troy just wanted to be a better person. He spend years hiding who he was and hiding behind assholes (being an asshole himself--just because his father and hockey, and toxic masculinity in general, gave him a serious case of self-hatred and internalized-homophobia (he is gay and knows he's gay and will have gay sex, but he feels incredibly judged by the public, even for having gay/romantic feelings for Harris), doesn't mean he was entirely blameless in his past actions, which he knows, which is great). And now he wants to be better and stand up for people and try. And Harris makes him want to be a better person (and Ilya, captain and closet queer extraordinaire--god, I love him).

Please, please, please check out the trigger warnings below (the novel has one in it as well). Besides just angry at the above described toxic masculinity (and described again below in a little more detail), Troy's internalized self-hatred and self-destructive themes/actions, along with his anxiety, where a little rough. Beyond just feeling for him, it made me anxious, so watch out.

Anyway! This book was fucking fabulous, as expected. They were cute as fuck and totally smitten from the start (but if they got together in the beginning, and if the book had zero angst, there wouldn't be a book, ya know? ;) ). READ THIS BOOK. READ THIS SERIES. PLEASE.

Can April come faster? I've been waiting for the last book in the series, the final book that wraps everything up, the book that hopefully gives Shane and Ilya their happily ever after (their out and proud hea). I seriously can't wait for "The Long Game." Maybe I'll be able to catch it when it pops up on #NetGalley (*fingers crossed*).

Trigger Warnings: rape culture, sexual assault, not believing rape victims, an entire series of industries based on toxic masculinity and not believing rape victims, homophobia, internalized homophobia, anxiety, internalized self-hatred, self-destructive themes/actions, etc 

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