Olympic Enemies turned out to be one of my guilty pleasure books.

I was super excited for this story since the blurb came out, and while the execution of a very promising idea was quite sloppy, I thoroughly enjoyed most parts of the book.

Olympic Enemies is pitched as a sports enemy to lovers, but to be honest the reasons Luc and Oliver were "enemies" are really weak and childish - and the fact they leave their animosity behind quite quickly confirms this. As it's happens quite often with a dual POV romance, I could empathize with one of the characters way more than the other: Oliver was on the right almost every time for me, while I found Luc's mindset very bewildering and frustrating at times.

The romance is very sweet and the author succeeds in creating a swoony (but still kind of secret) relationship which makes you root for the couple.

The book has some problems, like the fact that the gymanstics aspect of the story is not carefully researched, that the whole grandeur surrounding an Olympic Games final is kind of hurried, some of the side characters looked to be set up for a bigger role and then nothing happenned (Brayden) and that Luc's character can be super annoyin - but it's overall an easy and pleasant read!

Thank you NetGalley and Wild Rose Press for the ARC!

Thanks to NetGalley and Wild Rose Press for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This checks all the boxes that a reader interested in this genre would hope for. In this book, we have British gymnasts Lucas and Oliver (I see you Alexis Hall fans squeaking!) who fulfill the enemies-to-lovers trope. Lucas is very Type A and focused on both academic and athletic success. He is determined to avoid distractions, including refusing to be cast as the 2024 Tom Daley Gay Athlete Poster Boy. Oliver is quietly bi, and filling the loss of a partner with friends and sport. They end up roommates at Olympic Village for the Paris 2024 Olympics. There isn't only one bed, but they make it one pretty early on in the book. In fact, they get so caught up in each other that you know eventually, they're going to tip off the press. Defining their relationship, hopefully before the press does, and coping with an ill-timed injury create most of the tension between the pair . This is a book that knows what it's supposed to be and just is what you expect.

*Thank you to NetGalley and The Wild Rose Press, Inc for providing me this book in exchange fro an honest review*

I didn't like this book for several reasons. Some of them were the slow burn of the book. I mean it wasn't plausible. The two rivals going for the gold metal and have to share a room? I mean it was soooo predictable. Also, although it had really slow burn the smut was just...ugh... Maybe it wasn't for me.

I love the Olympic vibe of this book, even though I don't know what all the moves are exactly. The fact that both Lucas and Oliver are both athletes on different paths. I did find the book slightly predictable, but I found places that shocked me or made me rethink my predictions.

Lucas is a college student and a gymnast at the Olympics games in Paris 2024. He is the loner, hard worker, keeps his head in the game, and sticks to himself type of guy. Oliver is captain of the mens Great Britain gymnastics team. He is the one that seems to be friends with all, over hyper, loves being center of attention.
Lucas and Oliver hate each other and end up being assigned the same room at the Olympic village. This book tells the story of both of these men and their journey at the Olympics.
The only thing that stood in the way of a 5th star on the review is the fact that I still have questions at the end of things that I wish were answered. I feel like the story just abruptly ends and could use an epilog to close out the last few questions that were left unanswered.

I received this ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

It is every athletes dream - to make it to the Olympics, to go for the Gold! However, when you have to share a room with your biggest rival - the person who doesn’t want anything to do with you, things can get a bit tense. One thing leads to another and a kiss is shared… you start to wonder if you really are enemies…

Highly recommend this super cute LGBTQ romance! (These boys stole my heart!)

💙💙💙💙

Olympic Rivals was a fun read featuring all the best things:
- enemies to lovers romance
- forced proximity
- a small found family and great friendships
- sports elements! (Aka gymnastics and the Olympics)

I enjoyed Lucas and Oliver's slow but determined trajectory from enemies to maybe teammates in lust and in the end, when they finally admitted there was more to it, lovers and friends.

One of the things that brought down the rating for me, however, was the bad editing. There was a lot of repetition, spelling mistakes, and sentences that didn't make sense, which I do believe a second read through could've fixed. I am usually not that bothered by that since mistakes do happen but this book simple had a couple too many.

All in all, if you are a fan of sports romances and enemies to lovers stories I do think this one would peak your interest!

Mein Leseerlebnis

Der Liebesroman hat mich vor allem aufgrund seiner faszinierenden und frischen Ausgangslage sowie dem Setting angesprochen. Ein Buch, das während der Olympiade 2024 in Paris stattfindet, primär im olympischen Dorf abspielt und in der sich zwei männliche, britische Gymnasten ineinander verlieben, ist schon etwas Besonderes.

Beim Lesen hat mich der lockere, unaufgeregte Schreibstil dann auch gleich angesprochen und das Setting war so spannend wie erhofft. Inwieweit die Gymnastikdetails stimmen, kann ich nicht beurteilen, denn dazu habe ich von der Sportart zu wenig Ahnung.

In Bezug auf die Charaktere mochte ich Lucas mehr als Oliver. Ich fand es etwas nervig, dass Lucas, der teils etwas introvertiert ist, nicht immer er selbst sein konnte. Dass nicht jeder abends rausgehen will um zu feiern, sollte Oliver bekannt sein. Da er zudem wusste, wie viel Lucas in seinem Alltag zu tun hatte, konnte ich sein Drängen nicht immer verstehen. Ja, Lucas hat es teils gut getan mal rauszukommen, teils war es mir aber zu viel und zu anstrengend.

Im Verlauf des Romans wurde mir Oliver sympathischer, was meinem Leseerlebnis gut getan hat. Lucas blieb allerdings bis zum Ende mein Lieblingshauptcharakter.

Die Liebesgeschichte selbst und die Entwicklung von Feinden zu Verliebten läuft innerhalb von gut drei-vier Wochen ab. Teils konnte mich die Wandlung der Gefühle überzeugen, teils ging es mir zu schnell.

Die körperliche Anziehung zwischen den Hauptcharakteren konnte ich fühlen, ihre Gefühle nur bedingt. Die Sexszenen laufen übrigens größtenteils hinter verschlossenen Türen ab, dadurch ging meiner Meinung nach eine Möglichkeit verloren, die sich wandelnden Gefühle zwischen den Charakteren besser darzustellen.

Übrigens wird die Geschichte als enemies to lovers - Typ charakterisiert, so ganz kann ich da nicht mitgehen. Ja, die beiden Hauptcharaktere mochten sich zunächst nicht, aber Feinde beschreibt in meinen Augen eine tiefere Abneigung und so etwas wie aktive Versuche den anderen zu sabotieren, so etwas kam im Buch nicht vor.

Blicke ich auf mein Leserlebnis zurück, so konnte mich die Geschichte insgesamt gut unterhalten. Ich denke aber, dass einiges an Potential im Liebesroman nicht genutzt wurde.

🖤🖤🖤1/2

Für wen?

Wer m/m romances mit Fokus auf Sport in einem spannenden, frischen Setting mag, sollte sich die Liebesgeschichte näher anschauen (enemies to lovers).

A cute hate-to-love story about a couple of athletes who will find their way into your heart!
The story is about Oliver and Lucas, two young men who think they couldn't be more different. Oliver seems like the person who always gets what he wants without a care in the world, and Lucas gives the impression of being an over-achiever, finishing his second university degree while being a professional athlete.
But as the story goes on, we get to know the people behind the facade, Lucas' worries about the future and Oliver's sorrowful past. Both slowly warm up to each other after an (accidental?) kiss between the two, getting more and more heated up for each other, pushing each other out of their comfort zones. What started as a friends-with-benefits-situation seems to be getting more serious as time goes on, but are both of them ready for that kind of commitment?
For me, it was a fast and satisfying read, I was finished in two days! Especially the first half was well-paced, some weird moments here and there, but especially Oliver's friends Julius and Tom liven up the story and give it a light-hearted feeling. The second half some of the decisions were hard to grasp and lack of real communication, but it seems as though all love stories today need this to properly function. Especially the long wait in the end until Oliver and Lucas finally have their conversation seemed a little exaggerated and artificial.
All in all though a satisfying and immensely cute read of being queer in the athlete world, accepting yourself and not judging a book by it's cover!
For fans of Saxon James and Eden Finley, you will love this!

I just couldn’t finish. I had to keep rereading pages. DNF at 20%
This just wasn’t the book for me.
I’m so glad others enjoyed it though.
Thank you to Netgalley and The Wild Rose Press for the early review copy.

We follow Lucas and Oliver in a dual POV as they compete in the 2024 olympics for Great Britain in gymnastics. The book starts off with a chapter from Lucas’s POV. We see his resentment for Oliver and I’m expecting us to find out why. But then reading the next chapter from Oliver’s POV we see no reason why anyone would hate him. He seems like a great team captain who cares about his teammates. Usually in an enemy to lover book there is a clear reason why one party hates the other party and there was none of that in this book. Other than referencing some arguments they had previously with no justification there’s no reason for Lucas and Oliver to hate each other. We kept being told that they don’t like each other and can’t stand to be in the same room yet their actions show something completely different. Even their thought unless it is specifically “I hate Lucas” or “I hate Oliver” tell us a different story.

They have been teammates for 5 years. I question the plausibility of this not happening sooner. I’m sure they’ve gone to competitions together before and had to have shared rooms. The whole enmities part of the book just missed the mark especially since they get together so quickly. There’s no tension. There’s no “I shouldn’t be feeling this”. I feel like this is a popular trope the author just wanted to check off to draw people (e.g., me) to read the book.

One thing the book does well though is the sports aspect. I know nothing about gymnastics but Caffery does a good job of adding a bit of technical description followed by description of how the movements flow together and the beauty of gymnastics. Regardless of the apparatus I never felt like I was at a disadvantageous not knowing anything about the sport. I wish there was a bit more breakdown of what the scores meant though. She touches on adding a multiplier for difficulty and taking points off for errors but when someone scores a 15.5 or a 16.2 I have no idea how much difficulty or expertise separates these 2 scores.

Overall though I enjoyed the book when not viewing it as enemies to lovers. It’s definitely predictable at times but I felt like the familiar script didn’t take away from the book.

🧡eARC Review🧡 Olympic Enemies by @rjcafferyauthor 🤸🤸‍♀️🤸‍♂️🥇🥈🥉

⭐⭐⭐⭐/⭐

Thank you to Rebecca and @thewildrosepress for providing me with a copy for review 😁.

First things first, I really don't like Enemies to Lover but it is in the title of the book so I did my best to park those reservations.

I really enjoyed my time with this book. It was fun. I enjoyed watching Lucas open up, to him becoming more with Olympic success and as a human being.

I really enjoyed Ollie once all the fake (confused?) hate towards Lucas was out of the way, which is pretty early on.

This is when I go back to the Enemies to Lovers issues. There is more than enough chemistry between Lucas and Ollie to make up for my issues with it - because who doesn't love more time in a story enjoying the 'happy' couple.

But the relationship/sex/intimacy develops far too quickly. The pair are together by about 30-40% through. I was sitting there at the 50% mark wondering what the second half of the book could actually be about.

Is it perfect? no. But what is? It was fun, I had a great time and really that is all you can ask for. Plus, if you love gymnastics then you will love it!

Releasing 6 February 2023.

I finished this book in one night and really enjoyed it. The premise is interesting and it was what got my attention in the first place, the whole theme of the Olympics, the Olympic village, the competitions and the press make the story especially attractive.
However, what I really liked were the protagonists. Lucas is an intelligent and talented boy, but he has problems socializing, he tends to isolate himself from the group and that causes him problems with his team. Oliver is the complete opposite, he is outgoing, works very well in a team and is a bit of a jerk, but he means well. This contrast of personalities is one of my favorite tropes in fiction and the author does a good job with Oliver and Lucas, who also have a lot of chemistry.
The book reads quickly and makes good use of all the elements it raises throughout the story, however, the title can be a bit misleading, as the main characters get along badly for just a few chapters before solving their problems and starting a relationship. If you are looking for an “enemies to lovers” or a “rivals to lovers”, this book probably won't meet your expectations. Also, I'm going to be honest, I don't think the athletics thing is that realistic, so if you're a big fan you might be disappointed by this too.
In my case, it was a small disappointment, but once I got over that idea I was able to enjoy reading much more. The narrative is great, the characters are adorable, the story can be raw at times, yet it's still a spicy romance that's thoroughly enjoyed.

I was sent this book by Net Galley and Wild Rose Press for free in exchange for a honest review.
When I first heard about this book, I was super excited for a rivals to lovers sports book, as sports romance is one of my favorite genres. However, I quickly had a few problems. Primarily, I disliked how we never saw why they were rivals, and as soon as they kissed, they suddenly got over all their animosity. Another problem I had was that I got the impression the author did not do enough research into gymnastics. For instance, every character was around 6 foot, which is extremely tall for an Olympic gymnast. Finally, I felt the book needed another round of editing, as there were frequently grammar mistakes.
If you are looking for a quick sports romance, this might be worth picking up, but it is not great by any means.

If you like sports romances this is the book for you, it gave me the best fuzzy feels. They gravitated towards each other so well, I laughed, cried and watching many many gymnastics videos after this. I appreciate the moves being described with detail it made it easier for me to visualize. Caffery did a great job giving an insight to the pain and ambition of being an athlete.

(It is FTB so if you're looking for fully detailed smut scenes it won't be here but it's still a great read and she's very descriptive with everything else!)

This was a fun, queer, enemies to lovers story centered around gymnast teammates at the 2024 Paris Olympic games. Lucas and Ollie are polar opposites, which leads them to constantly bump heads the entire 5 years they have competed together. Now, with gold medals on the line, they need to shape up and get their acts together and start playing nice if they want any chance of winning. Olympic Enemies was a cute romance surrounding two boys living the greatest moments of their lives, while simultaneously falling in love, despite outside forces trying to tear them apart. I enjoyed the story, the pacing, and the characters. There were a lot of technical terms involving gymnastics that went over my head, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book.

*Review posted on Goodreads on 1/23
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5287686908?book_show_action=false

The romance in this book was very cute! i love the rivals to teammates to friends to lovers stepping stone that happens throughout the book and i really enjoyed the duel pov so we could get insight into both characters.

i feel as though the olympic/athletic side of things possibly could’ve been researched more to make it more authentic to olympic athletes.

overall, it was a fun sports romance with some great characters!

Today’s *spoiler free* review is brought to you by YZ🍀

📌 𝑶𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝑽𝒆𝒓𝒅𝒊𝒄𝒕: A WordWanderlust’s ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Read

📁 𝑮𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆: LGBTQ, YA Romance Comedy, BL/MLM, Athletes

📚 𝑻𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔: I remember requesting this on NetGalley because the description of the book seemed so interesting and I was not disappointed. I have never read a book that features professional athletes before so it was interesting to explore such a genre for the first time.

This was an easy read, I managed to devour it within 5 hours! I particularly enjoyed the romantic tension between the two male leads. Olympic Enemies was rather smutty for me, smuttier than the usual BL books I’ve read to be honest. If you are into some descriptive sexual action, this is the book for you haha.

I really enjoyed the sporty parts of this book. I have always been fascinated with gymnastics and some of the iconic moves being described really helped to engage my reading interests. There was a good balance between the sporting side of things and the more romantic one - I really appreciated this delicate balance.

Overall, this was a really pleasant read. The characters were likeable despite their flaws. I felt like I understood their internal struggles as queer individuals coming to terms with their sexuality, especially as popular national athletes subjected to the scrutiny of the public eye. The ending was a tad bit rushed but this was no biggie for me. Somehow, I think this book is well-suited for a sequel - it kinda gave me the same vibes as Alexis Hall’s Boyfriend Material!

If you have some time to spare, I suggest giving this book a shot!

For more genuine and unfiltered reviews, follow us @wordwanderlust!

I will talk about this on my podcast next month. Olympic Enemies was an adorable and fun sports romance book. I wish there was some diversity within the main cast of characters. Other than that it’s a fun book.

DNF’d at 20%

This felt more like a bully romance than enemies to lovers. Maybe it progresses as the book goes on but I couldn’t bring myself to keep reading these two be genuinely awful to each other.

The constant sniping between them felt more like they were teenagers than adults and I’m not here for physical intimidation thanks. Still not even sure why they were “rivals”.

Also, this needs some HEAVY editing. I know proof copies aren’t final but I sure hope someone gives this a very thorough edit before publishing. It was rife with grammar errors.

Olympic Enemies es una historia de amistad, sueños y sí, de amor.

En detalles técnicos, la narración resulta fluida y adictiva. Es una novela cuyo desarrollo está lleno de momentos adorables y muy divertidos. Desde la página número uno se puede sentir una tensión palpable entre los personajes principales, que sin dudas solo hace que las cosas se vuelvan más interesantes.

Además, siendo fan de las temáticas literarias deportivas y los Juegos Olímpicos, sentí que -a nivel personal- era una muy buena combinación de todos los elementos que hacen que me enamore de un libro. Y que a su vez, tocaba temas muy sensibles referente a los mismos, con los que las personas se pueden identificar de cualquier manera.

Sinceramente me pareció una muy buena opción para los fanáticos de Red, White and Royal Blue, y/o de series como Young Royals.

Mi única observación es, bueno, en realidad la portada no me encanta, pero supongo que eso ya es otro asunto.

⭐⭐⭐⭐