Although this book built the characters well and had great relationships, I'm not a big fan of this book. I loved how it touched upon everything happening in each character's life, and how it covered many issues and struggles. This book didn't grab my interest like I thought it would have. Overall, I don't think it's a bad book, I just think this book wasn't for me.

first time reading about ice skating and this was so cute! despite the fact that all the talk about skating was confusing, i really enjoyed this book.

i really felt for olivia, she just wanted to find her place in this world and for her parents to care. jonah was adorable i loved him.

this book was very... anticlimactic... i honestly just loved the characters.

This was a super fun, YA skating romance. Olivia is a figure skater, Jonah a speed skater. They meet at the ice rink Olivia’s family owns. I have no clue how accurate any of the skating is, but I found the characters likable and relatable.

Olivia thought she had come to terms with the end of her Olympic dreams, but a new fire was lit, when inspiring speed skater, Jonah, began training at her parent's rink. As she attempted to reclaim her place in the skating world, her world outside began to crumble, but would this mark the end of her skating comeback?

• Pro: In this kind of story, I needed to be able to root for someone, and I found myself sort of rooting for EVERYONE! Olivia, Jonah, Mack, mom, dad, the business -- I wanted everyone and everything to succeed, and Fujimura did a nice job cycling me through an array of emotions as I awaited all the individual outcomes.

• Pro: I couldn't imagine going from being at the top of my sport to believing I was washed-up at 15. I easily sympathized with Olivia's adjustment to "normal teen life", but I never stopped hoping she would stop moping and wage her comeback.

• Pro: I adored Jonah. He was so focused on his goals. His discipline was admirable, however, I won't say I was sad, when a certain young woman became both a motivation and distraction for him. This let me see his sweet and swoony side, and it was something I was glad I had the opportunity to get acquainted with.

• Pro: Mack was everything you want and need in a best friend. At first, I saw her as the comic relief, but she was so much more than that, and I was so happy that Fujimara gave Mack her own story arc. Believe me, when I say that the Kennedys struck gold the day this young woman walked into their rink.

• Pro: Olivia was still adjusting to life outside the skating world, and she had little support from her parents, as her father was physically absent, and her mother, emotionally absent. My worry was allayed once I met Mack, Jonah, Egg, and even the lunch bunch were there to give Olivia much needed pushes, hugs, and encouragement.

• Pro: The romance between Jonah and Olivia was so sweet, adorable, and awkward. I shipped them hard from their first standoff, and was so happy with the way it all played out.

Overall: I loved the time I spent at the rink getting to know Olivia, Jonah, and everyone else in their world, and throughly enjoyed their journey as they reached for their dreams.

This is a cute romance book filled with friendship and pursuing your goals. Both Olivia and Jonah are passionate about ice skating. Jonah is a speed skater, renting out Olivia’s family’s rink so he can practice. Olivia is a former figure skater, uncertain if she wants to pick it back up again. This is a very diverse book with neither of the main characters being completely white. The only white main character is a teen mom, which is something you really don’t see in books, and I really liked its inclusion.
However this book fell a little bit short for me. I was confused by the title. With the title “Every Reason We Shouldn’t” I thought there would be more romantic tension and angst because they can’t be together, but everything goes smoothly. The only point of contention is when Jonah is considering going to an olympic training center and when his dad is being really really strict. I was hoping there would be actual reasons why they couldn’t be together (like their families hating each other, cultural differences, different hobbies) but there really aren’t any.
It was still a very heartwarming story of two kids falling in love over a common interest and pursuing their passions. It’s perfect for younger teens and is great as a quick, light-hearted read.

This was an enjoyable read. It is predictable, but this does not make it any less enjoyable. I did feel it dragged in some places, but it is a nice light read.

Thanks to Macmillan-Tor/Forge & @netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The writing was okay, You know when you read a YA book and you know it was made for someone who is actually 16, that was this book. I feel like a lot of YA books are directed towards an 17-18+ age and this one was meant for someone much younger.

The focus of the book was really about competitive skating. Training for it, the mentality needed for it, how it consumes your life, and how it can affect the rest of your life (as in the case of Olivia's mother's debilitating back injury). The parents were also written from a point of view I didnt really enjoy they were either absent, or overly focused on her ice skating.


This one was just okay for me

In all honesty, this probably was never going to be my kind of book. But I thought I'd give it a try anyway since it had the potential to be a cute fluffy romance, and included ice skating which practically invented romance anyway (see exhibit A: Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir). Except that it was really really not great. It only took me a few pages to recognise the fact that the writing was incredibly distracting. I wanted to give it a second chance, so I continued. It felt like the second chapter was written by an entirely different person than the first. Not to mention the fact that the prose itself is just so juvenile. The author is clearly trying their very hardest to sound cool and hip and it's having the opposite effect. Word to the budding novelist - just because Forever 21 might have it on a t-shirt, doesn't mean people actually talk like this in real life. 'OMG' and 'awko-taco' are two words (?) I had to read before I gave up. And it wasn't even a piece of dialogue - it was inner monologue. And it was awful. Anyway, I'm sorry I abandoned this so quickly, but it honestly just isn't worth my time. On to the next one.

Every Reason We Shouldn't is a nicely written YA story that feels very much like the outline for a teen movie. I appreciated that as much attention was given to the pro skating/training as to the romance and that the characters were conflicted in different ways. I also liked that neither main character was your typical white urban teens with clueless parents. Each person had a distinct voice and was working on their own agenda and needs, which was refreshing.

Story: Teenager Olivia's famous figure skating parents own a rink in Phoenix. Olivia herself was a professional skater as well but after a championship went very wrong, she has opted to be an instructor at her mother's rink. But the rink is in financial trouble, her father has to be on the road for most of the year to earn money, and her mother's injury keeps her medicated and at home most of the day. Olivia's consolation is Mac - the older girl who works at the rink with Olivia. To make ends meet, Olivia's mother rents out the rink to an olympic hopeful - a younger speed skater named Jonah. Olivia and Jonah have a lot in common - instantly understanding the world of constantly training on the ice for big competitions and as olympic hopefuls. But with Jonah's helicoptor parents and Olivia's absent ones, the rink may not be able to survive much longer.

Perhaps the best part of the book is the seamless blending of cultures. From Olivia's Japanese background to Jonah's very Korean parents - all within the American milieu of Phoenix. Author Fujimura does an excellent job of bringing in everything from traditional foods to being a bit of an outcast in a nearly all-white school (the Asian-heritaged kids all ended up hanging out together and 'representing' at lunch).

Another bonus was best friend Mac - a bit spikey and conflicted, a single parent dealing with a deadbeat dad, but one of the smartest kids to graduate valedictorian. Her journey from top of the class to scraping gum off the undersides of tables at the rink is poignant. Several other characters were also interesting as well: Olivia's former ice skating partner Egg (Stuart) and his ambivalence was a nice touch.

The focus of the book was really about competitive skating. Training for it, the mentality needed for it, how it consumes your life, and how it can affect the rest of your life (as in the case of Olivia's mother's debilitating back injury). The parents weren't vilified for either a) being too focused on training (as with Jonah's father), or b) the absence of Olivia's father as he toured with an ice skating company in order to help keep the rink going. Olivia's mother issues due to the severe pain and requiring medications was well written.

Points also for the romance, which wasn't a silly tempestuous melodramatic thing but instead something that the two openly acknowledged and pursued in a nicely organic fashion.

In all, a really nice read and something I wish would be turned into a teen move some day. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

Alrighty, yet another case of simply not for me. I was in the mood for a cuter, younger romance vibe when I signed up for this read (also, multiculturalism and Olympic skating were big draws) but I just am not in the mood for it. The narrator can be pretty immature and while, yeah, that's teenagers for you, it just was not something I could handle for almost three hundred pages. Highly recommend for funs of cuter, younger romances though!!

Eh.

I'm a bit of a skating media lover (though not an expert by any means!) so I was looking forward to this, but something between the individual elements and the combination of it all didn't altogether work for me. I found Olivia to be a confusing MC: on the one hand fairly average and relatable, dealing with parental issues and falling in love for the first time, but on the other having a pretty big chip on her shoulder based on her perception of herself as a #1 skating star who none of her "normal" friends could possibly understand. This was especially hard to swallow because the narrative was pretty back and forth on how talented and/or devoted Olivia actually is to skating. As she gave her impassioned speeches at the end about the importance of having a rink which focuses on the love of skating, I tried to remember if I ever felt that she had a passion for the sport itself - it seemed like she was more focused on the reputation and winning aspects of it, the cachet of being an Olympian.

(Like I said, not an expert, but it seems to me that there's a certain amount of arrogance to believing yourself Olympic-worthy or even potentially Olympic-worthy after taking a big chunk of time off from practicing your sport much less competing.)

Jonah's through line in relation to his sport was much clearer. I appreciated how Apolo Ohno was mentioned as inspirational to him as it's the kind of thing a fan/participant in a less well-known sport would latch onto (and, also being of mixed Asian heritage, the invocation thereof particularly touched on the importance of having exemplars in your field of interest) and I was grateful that the book didn't try to steer him away from his own path to partner with Olivia (and in fact explicitly called out how unlikely and unhelpful it would be). I wasn't, however, overly impressed with him as a love interest. I guess I found him too realistic in some ways rather than the typical rom-com/YA fluff boyfriends. Coming back from competition and doing a reveal of his medals seemed sort of a self-important teen boy move rather than a cute one, and the way he seemed to appreciate Olivia's understanding regarding his own drive and obligations but was unenthusiastic/dubious/unsupportive of her own talents had me side-eyeing. Also, the fact that Olivia was already gunning for him when he was still saying stuff like "slow carbs are crap" at least once a chapter...to each their own, I guess.

As for the supporting characters, I thought Mack was clearly the standout, someone with her own plotline and issues (honestly, more "not going to college/plan B" YA stories - as college admissions get only more competitive and stress inducing, showing interesting, smart, well-rounded characters whose lives don't end with a Stanford rejection is valuable) but whose loyalty to Olivia was lowkey baffling. Stuart/Egg was also interesting along similar lines. As for the school friends, I felt like they existed more for conflict/contrast than to actually be characters of their own. (And the "his girlfriend, Naomi" thing in the epilogue was...not smooth.)

I know other reviewers felt this way in regards to the lockdown scene, that it was only included for brief drama and wasn't given the long-term emotional weight it deserved. I read the book this afternoon and had forgotten that it even happened by the time I was starting to write this review so take from that what you will.

The ending didn't overly impress me from a realism standpoint, but I suppose that it wasn't really that type of book; a sort of magical fix of a seemingly impossible situation is probably a fairly fitting ending.

Maybe recommend to readers looking for light fiction, and who focus on story rather than character or language.

ETA: I went to look the author up to see if she was a Phoenix native herself (I've never been to the city, and was thinking about the description of the school as fairly lacking in Asian students and wondering if she spoke from personal experience) and found that she describes herself on her website as "the American half of our Japanese-American family." As a white person who is married into a Japanese family, who has biracial/bicultural children, and who spends time in Japan, she's almost certainly more knowledgeable than my single white/Jewish self, and I'm hopeful that the cultural references are accurate, but it seems to me that her not being Asian herself makes her talk of over-bearing Asian parents in particular...a little iffier.

2 stars This one just didn’t do much for me. It was ok. I wanted more. I’m not exactly sure what I needed but this one just fell flat. It had a lot of potential but I never fully connected with the characters.

Initial Impressions: To be honest, this book has not grabbed my attention. It is obviously very fun and light-hearted, but the introduction was nothing too exciting. This doesn't mean that the rest of the book won't be amazing, but the few SPaG mistakes and cliche characters do not bode well. I'm eager to continue reading and see what Fujimura has done to make this book special!

Halfway-Through Notes: Although I didn't like the introductory chapters, Every Reason We Shouldn't has picked up quite a bit! Personally, I dislike the protagonist, but Fujimura is successful in allowing the reader to relate with her because of mutual hatred towards snobby girls who are worthless but expecting of others. This is definitely a positive aspect for me! Something I'm a bit concerned about is the attention towards safe sex. On one hand, I am unbelievably appreciative that a YA author is finally mentioning condoms and being responsible. Books are one of the biggest influences on teenagers, so putting safe sex into books could be a lifesaver (literally or not). On the other hand, I felt like the topic of safe sex was placed awkwardly and talked about too much considering the fact they aren't actually having any sex at the age of fifteen. We'll see how it goes!

Opinions: To be honest, Every Reason We Shouldn't is a fun read but nothing special. It is a book you should save for the end of your TBR that is quick, exciting, and doesn't cause too much timely deep-thinking. Something I enjoyed about the book was how realistic it was. Fujimura made sure readers related and connected to the characters and therefore learned something from them about various subjects. I appreciate her intentions with this book; they were very obvious! On the other hand, I feel like Fujimura focuses far too much on the setting rather than the story as a whole. I found myself having to reread whole pages because I lost engagement due to too much Chekhov's Gun misuse. For me, this was a bit of a problem throughout the book. Although there were things I disliked about Every Reason We Shouldn't, we can't forget the positives as well. I would recommend this book to anybody looking for a sweet, innocent romance! I hope you enjoy it.

My Favourite Thing: I actually did enjoy the ending; it earned Every Reason We Shouldn't a full star! Without giving anything away, the climax and ending was emotional for the characters and the reader. Depending on which characters you were rooting for in the book, all of the built anticipation was ruined. The ending is what makes readers sit down and think about the character's journeys and decisions. It made me enjoy this book much, much more! It gave this story meaning.
My Least Favourite Thing: I found Every Reason We Shouldn't to be a dull book. There is lots of drama but everything seems to flatline. There were no ups and downs and very little excitement. Another way to look at this is my connection to the characters. Because they're so realistic, I'm able to relate, but connecting and empathising is another story. Because of this, I found myself unable to care about their fates, thus making the story slow and lifeless to me.

Total Rating: PG-13
Language: PG-13
Adult Content: PG-13 (discussions about safe sex)
Violence: PG-12

Recommended For and Similar Reads: That's right, Every Reason We Shouldn't is for fans of Rainbow Rowell, John Green, and Jenny Han. It is a soft, heartfelt, emotionally-relatable book about first love and friendships. You'll cry, laugh, and learn a lot about yourself and relationships! Similar reads are Tweet Cute, Yes, No, Maybe So, and Finding Mr Better Than You. The writing style also reminds me of Silken Scales by Alex Hayes, despite the utter differences in genre.

Everything stated within the "My Opinions," "My Least/Favourite Thing," "Going Deeper," and "Looking Back," is my personal opinion.

Very enjoyable and well rounded read. Romantic YA novels tend to focus on romance and nothing else, this was an exception. The characters, their choices and actions were well formed and there was a good balance between showing and telling character motivations. I was really sad to come to the end of this fictional world.

I am far form the target audience for this book (my YA days were long ago), but I have to say that this was a very fun read. Interestingly, there wasn't much conflict in the romance, none of the will they/won't they; instead the conflict came from family issues and (more interestingly) the protagonists' uncertainty about her future and whether she really did have what it takes to be a top athlete.

I disagree with some other reviewers who see the heroine as a "not like other girls" archetype; instead she and the love interest were "not like other people"; it takes insane commitment and sacrifice to try to be a top athlete and I think the author did a good job of capturing those differences in personality and worldview. I also like that <spoiler>the book ended with some ambiguity. Things were looking up, but not everyone had achieved all of their ambitions and goals yet.</spoiler> One major thing that fell flat; <spoiler>the major incident at the school felt shoehorned in and too quickly forgotten. </spoiler>

On the whole, not a masterpiece, but a really fun, quick read.

Olivia and Jonah the main leads of this book are slowly falling for each other since the very starting. You can get the vibe of an Asian guy coming over, a health freak, from a wealthy family who pay trucks full of money to get him to train alone and prepare for Olympics. And Olivia is the one whose family owns the skating ring where the guy is practicing and is supposed to assist him, she finds him annoying, typical of how people fall, first the fights and then the realization. So basically that happened.
I like the character of her bff Mack, she seemed quite bubbly and loyal.

This is a story about complicated families, falling in love, finding yourself, and friendship. Olivia Midori Kennedy is a girl who's lost her way. She was a champion figure skater who was on her way to the Olympics when she crashed and burned her first time competing at the adult level. She found herself giving up and putting away her skates, not wanting to face the world again after her humiliation.

But when Jonah Choi, a speed skater, comes to train at her parents' ice rink, she finds herself rediscovering her motivation as she watches his focus and determination. She finds herself wanting to skate again, to try to find her way and get back to the championships she knows she can win.

Together, the two of them open each other's eyes to what's important. They understand each other in a way no one else can, seeing the drive in one another to compete, to be better, to win. They find happiness in one another and they push each other to do better.

3.75 stars

From the cover and description, I assumed this book would be a light teen romance and that this romantic relationship would really be the focal point of the work. I am pleasantly surprised that this is not the case at all.

While the romance is an important aspect of the novel, it isn't the only story line. The main character, Olivia, experiences a great deal of growth as she comes to terms with her potential as a nationally and even internationally recognized figure skater, a daughter, a friend, a typical teen (i.e. one who attends school, has friends, experiences a social life, etc.), a romantic partner, and a maturing young adult. Olivia's relationships are complex, and she straddles the line between having to grow up very quickly (with a mostly absent father, a mother who is not fully present for other reasons, a socioeconomically disadvantaged kid, and a young person with an extensive figure skating history) and needing to do a lot of social maturation because these other areas have taken up so much of her "normal" kid time. It is exciting to watch her grow - along with various other characters - and it is easy to feel invested in their success. Also, it's so refreshing to see that so many of the central characters are Asian. Representation matters, and this novel is stronger because of this aspect.

I will absolutely be recommending this to students and colleagues who are looking for a solid YA novel centered on character growth and teamwork.

I read this straight through, much too late into the night, and I am completely delighted. I was interested in the experiences of these characters with lives different from my own. I was cheering them on toward their own successes. The friends and family characters were engaging and I just enjoyed this story so much. Thank you for creating a fun teen sports romance that so thoroughly immersed me in the ice rink culture in Phoenix, Arizona.

4 stars
Exciting, PG, multicultural, YA, sports romance

Olivia Kennedy is the almost-sixteen, biracial daughter of a Japanese-American mother and Euro-American father who are world famous for winning Olympic gold as a fabulously talented figure-skating team. Olivia had figure-skating, Olympic dreams as well, and trained since early childhood toward that lofty goal, until a humiliating failure at a major competition the previous year convinced her that her Olympic potential is gone. Since then, she has concentrated on life as a “normal” teenager in Phoenix, Arizona. She has been attending school for the first time, after years of home schooling due to her hectic skating schedule. And she has contributed a great deal to the increasingly dicey proposition of keeping her parents’ ice-skating rink afloat. The rink is struggling mainly because her father is constantly on the road trying to earn a living as a professional, performing, Ice Capades type skater, and her mother can work very little due to suffering constant debilitating pain from a back injury sustained a few years ago when her father dropped her during a performance. Besides Olivia’s efforts, significant help with the rink is also provided by its sole, non-family employee who helps manage the rink, Olivia’s closest friend, Mack, a twenty-year-old single mother with a baby and aspirations to win a spot on a local, women’s, roller derby team.

When almost-sixteen Jonah Choi, a Korean-American, Olympic-caliber, speed skater, begins training regularly at Olivia’s family’s rink, his fees are a tremendous boon to the bottom line of the rink. In addition, their budding romantic relationship has a profound, positive effect on the two of them, both personally and in their ongoing growth and development as super-star skaters.

I’m a big fan of well-written, young-adult, sports romances, particularly when both of the romantic protagonists are massively talented athletes, and especially when they engage in the same sport—or very close to it—as is the case for Jonah and Olivia, who are both masterful ice skaters.

In addition to the central romance plot, there are many fun scenes with both Olivia and Jonah on stage when he is training as a speed skater and solicits tips and tricks from her as a figure skater that could help him avoid catastrophic falls while racing. There are also many entertaining scenes between Mack and Olivia, as well as scenes showing Olivia’s relationship with her mother and one-on-one scenes with her father. There are also crucial scenes with Olivia’s former figure-skating partner, Egg, who at age eighteen is a few years older than Olivia.

I greatly appreciated that every character in this novel, both the main two protagonists and the above subcharacters, all have significant grown arcs. Jonah and Olivia have the ideal kind of romance, in my estimation, in that they stimulate each other to become better people, both personally and as athletes. Olivia’s mother has important decisions to make about treatment options for her chronic pain, and her father has issues to deal with surrounding keeping the family financially afloat. The author sympathetically portrays Mack’s struggles as a single mother, as someone attempting to improve her ice-skating skills in order to win a spot on the local roller derby team, and as a new adult hoping to find a career that fits her natural interests and talents.

This book has a satisfying, “happy for now” type of HEA, and all plot threads are tied up with no crucial questions left unanswered.

I would rate this book PG in the sense that Olivia and Jonah have intense sexual and emotional chemistry with each other, and as a natural outgrowth of that, they have several passionate make-out sessions over the course of the novel. Other than that, the book is mostly G-rated in that there are no drugs, underage drinking, or wild parties. It is a refreshing change for YA novels that Jonah, especially, and Olivia to a lesser degree, both eat a healthy diet and, while in training, avoid junk food of all kinds, especially sugar.

My one objection to this book is that the author has not done her homework on treatment options for excruciating chronic pain such that which Olivia’s mother endures. Further, the author has a poor understanding of how health insurance coverage works in the USA. It seems to be a typical failing of American authors of popular fiction in general that they tend to present in their stories one of two equally inaccurate, opposite extremes about healthcare costs: either they presume that all healthcare is free in the USA (which it decidedly is not), or they presume that all healthcare is paid entirely out of pocket (which also is not true). In the case of Olivia’s family, their money problems are a central source of conflict for Olivia in the novel, and they are attributed for the most part to the ever mounting, unpaid medical bills of Olivia’s mother. However, as a family that is poor enough that Olivia qualifies for the free lunch program at the public school she attends, her family would simultaneously qualify for free health insurance coverage under Medicaid in Arizona, which has been greatly expanded via massive federal subsidies since 2013. Which means that, in actuality, Olivia’s family would have no logical reason to be enormously in debt for Olivia’s mother’s ongoing medical expenses.

In addition, there is another irritating medical inaccuracy springing off of the above misconception that Olivia’s mother is presumed to have no health insurance. Other than for emergency surgery to keep a patient from dying, doctors and hospitals in this country, for decades now, have refused to allow patients to run up medical debts. They flatly refuse to treat patients without insurance unless they pay cash directly to their billing staff before the doctor will see them, or the hospital will treat them. And if patients have insurance, before the doctor will see them or they can have surgery at a hospital, the billing staff will call their insurance company, find out what it will pay for the proposed medical care, and insist that the patient pay the difference before receiving treatment. In addition, no doctor or physical therapist deals with the money side of things. They leave that entirely to the billing staff. For that reason, as well as patient privacy laws, a PT would never, ever yell across a waiting room, threatening a patient that she’d better get her bill paid soon if she wants any more treatment, as Olivia’s mother’s PT does in this book.

Finally, on the irritating medical mistakes front: it is highly improbable that, in a city the size of Phoenix, both Olivia’s mother and Jonah would show up at the same time at the same PT’s office for treatment.

Other than these healthcare inaccuracies, though, the author’s research on the central focus of the story, ice skating, including figure skating, speed skating, and roller derby skating, seems accurate, realistic, and is compellingly written.

I rate this book as follows:
Heroine: 4 stars
Hero: 5 stars
Subcharacters: 4 stars
Romance Plot: 4 stars
Skating Plot: 4 stars
Family Medical Drama Plot: 2 stars
Writing: 4 stars
Overall: 3.8 rounded to 4 stars