Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Oh my God, I loved this book. In the very beginning, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to DNF because Juliette was such a raging b****. I’m so glad I pushed through! I also wasn’t sure how much I’d like the whole “soul marks” thing but I think it was crafted into the story very well and really helped shape the plot.

The characters in this book were perfectly imperfect and I love them so much. And the pining! The yearning! There was SO much and I. AM. HERE FOR IT. It had a great balance of sports to romance to plot. All around, very well done and a very rewarding ending.

I will admit I know diddly squat about tennis, so the lengthy, in depth descriptions of matches were a bit much. Let me clarify: the length of the passages was fine, but the lingo was only for those in the know and I had zero idea what was going on. I could have looked it up, but I was too busy reading, so I take full responsibility. Also, I couldn’t grasp all the different accents happening in the book, so my mind decided everyone had a Russian accent? I think my brain is faulty.

Anyway, read this. It was great! And a very quick read.

This book was a little tough for me. Completely stopped my reading momentum, and I just found that I was forcing myself to read it. I like the characters, the tennis, and the ending (not the epilogue so much). I think I’m just perhaps not the right audience for this? I’m unsure. But it just could not keep my attention, and because it took so long to read I found myself getting confused. The soulmates thing also caught me off guard, but I should’ve read the description closer. To me, this trope combined with enemies to lovers didn’t really work? But I’m also not a big fan of the soulmates trope. Overall, not a bad book, it has good qualities, just not for me! Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy!

Thank you Atria Books and NetGalley for the early copy! This book was absolutely adorable, and I loved every second! I cannot wait for everyone to have a chance to read this! =]

So, I liked this book. I liked the premise, I like the sports romance and magical realism genre blend, I liked the HEA. However, I think the execution needs a little work.

Juliette flip flops drastically so often, I have a hard time believing her by the final flip. In the same vein, Luca alludes to a catastrophic relationship prior to Juliette and Luca still seemingly lets Juliette in very quickly even though she knows Juliette has strong feelings on soulmates.

I think that both characters need therapy, and there is only a brief mention of either of them getting help in the last quarter of the book. Luca in particular has unmanaged anxiety and having dealt with that myself, I don't know how Luca could manage a high pressure professional athletic career in the slightest without any help. She says Vladimir is very close to her, and he hasn't said "get help"? And Nicky hasn't either?

I also think Luca's relationships in general need better definitions. We see more of the dynamics between Juliette and her family than we do between Luca and the chosen family she has.

It is certainly beach read material, in that it's easy to put down and pursue other activities, and easy to pick back up when you come back to it.

P.S. SPOILER
I also want to hear more about Leo's second soulmark and how they navigate that.

3.5 stars!

"Backhanded Compliments" has a lot going for it: tension, tennis, chemistry between the leads, and lots of characters! Unfortunately, it also suffers a bit from having a bit too much going on: our leads Juliette and Luca are enemies to lovers AND rivals to lovers, they are each other's soulmate mark match, and they are both dealing with individual issues outside of tennis. While the plethora of side characters offer a lot of insight to Juliette, Luca, and flesh out the tennis world, they don't get a lot of development and end up being used for plot beats here and there to further the story. I believe this novel would have landed better with me if the focus was on *either* the soulmate marks, or the rivals to lovers (with Juliette's family drama/Luca's anxiety subplot)--because the novel has both, it often feels like the same beats are recycled a few times and the novel felt longer than it needed to be. The soulmate marks (and the other vaguely magical concepts that accompany it) are interesting enough on their own and (in my opinion) don't need the backdrop of the enemies/rivals thing to make Jules and Luca's relationship stand out; likewise, they do have a compelling enemy/rival relationship outside of the soulmate marks, which leads to the marks feeling like a distraction or an easy excuse for tension/flirting/romance when it comes up during a conflict or important moment.

That said, I absolutely didn't dislike this novel. The romance between Luca and Juliette is electric when it happens, the attraction between them is very real and their process to finding each other was satisfying and sweet! Both of them grow through the novel, and they complement each other in different ways. I also enjoyed the amount of tennis in the novel--Katie Chandler definitely doesn't shy away from the sports part of a sports romance! I'll likely read more from her in the future. I'd recommend "Backhanded Compliments" to anyone looking for a queer wlw sports romance, anyone that digs enemies-to-lovers, and folks that read soulmate mark fanfiction ten years ago and would be delighted to see it return in a novel.

Major thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review!

*This review will be posted to my Goodreads and Storygraph on 6/4, the week before this novel's release.

DNF Unfortunately the soulmates plot is not for me.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

This one wasn’t for me. The soulmate plot felt awkward and invasive, and the main characters lacked chemistry. Love sapphic stories and sports romances, but sadly this one isn’t my vibe.

Thank you to Atria books for this eARC! I’ll be honest I went into this one seeing the sports romance part, but having completely missed the Soulmate Mark part of the book. So that threw me through a loop for a bit but I really sank into it. The leads had amazing chemistry and I really enjoyed their competitive nature on the court and off. Just a really fun, interesting, different read.

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me @ 16%. I just didn't feel connected to the characters or their stories. I felt like there was no set up for the soulmate tattoos nor the animosity between the two athletes. I'm sure this might be easier to connect with for tennis players/enthusiast. Unfortunately, this one was just not for me. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the gifted eARC. All opinions are my own.

2.5 Stars

A major part of the plot is that soulmates are a thing where your soulmate’s name appears on your wrist as a child (but not everyone has one). It’s not really explained beyond that and it felt like an easy way to say this is why Juliette and Luca have such a strong connection and “need” each other. With so little details about how the whole soulmate thing works (beyond the obvious), I feel that it could have been taken out and the story largely would have remained the same.

I also felt that at times Juliette and Luca’s personalities were the same, which got a little confusing since we got both POVs.

However, I loved this being set in the world of tennis and seeing women being competitive yet still friends. I also really enjoyed the side characters.

I received an advanced copy through Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for early access to “Backhanded Compliments” by Katie Chandler. I will admit that I was a little skeptical when the fantastical twist seemed to be the healing power of one’s soulmate, thinking it was a little cheesy at first, but there was such an emphasis on the element of choice that I quickly got over it! Our MCs and tennis rivals both shined on their own and sparkled together! Their passions and the tennis aspect were highlighted as well as the romance that was ALL sparks. In particular with contemporary romance, side characters and a fully thought-out community can make or break the book for me – this one gave you intriguing relationships in spades. Excited to see what Chandler has next up her sleeve.

Backhanded Compliments is about two rival tennis stars, who also happen to be ~*magical soulmates*~. They properly meet for the first time at the Australian Open, in which Luca defeats Juliette. As they shake hands, it's boom! Sparks fly! And they can now confirm the soulmate-status... though their soulmate's names have literally been etched into their skin since they were babies, and neither woman is particularly surprised. Luca is totally cool with Juliette being her soulmate, but Juliette is not, and she proceeds to spend the first half of the book being an absolute asshole to Luca for no reason. Luca is so reserved, shy, sensitive, and nice, but Juliette acts like it's the end of the fucking world that they are soulmates just because Luca beat Juliette ONE TIME (and during/after that one time, Juliette has a full blown temper tantrum on the court). Eventually Juliette stops being an asshole all the time, but she really doesn't do enough to redeem herself after that. I found the second half of the book mostly pretty boring and I thought Luca deserved better.

Reading this book has made me realize that I cannot, in fact, watch Challengers one time and expect to know how to play tennis.

I enjoyed parts of this book. The banter between the main characters was great and the spicy scenes were *hot*! I really appreciated the anxiety rep and thought that it was handled very well.

While I liked that the tennis scenes were putting us right in it, I really didn’t understand any of it. That’s probably my fault since this was my first sports romance I’ve ever read and it’s in a sport I’ve never watched or played. I also felt that some of the side characters fell flat. The worst was Luca’s best friend, Nicky. He felt thrown in and if he was taken out entirely it wouldn’t change the plot. Similarly, the soul mates trope was fun but I didn’t feel like it made or broke the story for me.

I might have rated this higher but I felt that the pacing was very slow, and maybe the book was a smidge too long. I found myself getting bored at times and wanted something more to happen to get me invested in the story.

Still, I thought the writing was good and would definitely read another book from the author (maybe not about tennis though 😅).

Unfortunately, this book was not for me. Bit heavy on the jargon, so as someone who does not follow tennis, it was very hard to get into the story. The fated mates/tattoo of your soulmate trope did not connect with me.

Thank you Atria Books and Katie Chandler for the ARC!

I think my biggest takeaway from Backhanded Compliments was that I do not care for Tennis 😅 Nor do I understand the scoring system at all. I spent most of the matches confused on the sets and games and how the whole scoring system worked. Even after googling it, I was still confused so I think I've just come to the conclusion that Tennis is not for me.

As for the story itself I feel like it was longer than it needed to be but at the same time nothing really happened. Constantly jumping back and forth of wanting each other and then not, and "we'll make it work" to "I can't do this" ultimately ruined their romance story for me. Most of the time the back and forth had no real logical reasoning and felt like it was just there to extend the plot.

Juliette and Luca as individual character were super likeable and I enjoyed how different they were and how they were both struggling with love and Tennis in different ways. I wish we would've got to explore Luca and Juliette more and how they are in a relationship outside of the whole "soulmate concept". I feel like the soulmate part at times was overbearing and took away from the relationship as it developed.

I honestly think most of the length of the story was because of the prose. There was a lot of repeating descriptors and even the same sentence back to back just slight reworded. Cutting out the unnecessary repetition would've made for a more efficient prose and quicker read.

Overall, I just didn't really find myself being sucked into the story or really rooting for Juliette and Luca romance though I did want to see them succeed in their sport (even if I still don't understand how the scoring works 😂). Unfortunately Backhanded Compliments just didn't deliver what I was hoping for when I went into the book. But hey, if you love Tennis and romance then maybe you'll have a better experience.

Final Rating 2.5

Ok, going into this, I didn't realize this had any fantasy-ish/magical elements, so for a minute, that threw me off. But honestly, I was really pleasantly surprised by this book. I had never heard of Katie Chandler before, but had seen the book mentioned on a list of upcoming releases so I just thought I would give it a try. This is a classic rivals to lovers story and I was here for it! Luca and Juliette were pretty nasty to each other in the beginning so it definitely took a minute for them to come around. I really enjoyed the amount of character growth that happened in this story. Juliette especially comes a long way within herself to be a better person her Luca and for herself. It was definitely a bit of a rollercoaster with the push and pull, but it paid off in the end. The idea of a "fated mates" situation, in a mostly contemporary romance was definitely original and I look forward to seeing how she might incorporate those fantasy elements into future books. 4 stars from me! Great story.

**This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a little hard for me to follow, I was not really connecting with the characters and was hoping for some more tennis within the book

generally pretty good, but i feel at points the soulmates bit was papering over the romance being a bit less strong than hoped. 3.5 stars, rounded up. tysm for the arc.

I could not get into this. The fated mates / tattoo of your soulmate trope did not connect with me. I did not finish the book. I was so looking forward to this because I love tennis novels, I love queer romance, and I love rivals to lovers. But it felt like the trope was doing the heavy lifting rather than the character development so it fell flat.

Somehow I missed the "soulmate" part of the blurb, but I'm actually not mad about it! If anything, I wish the author had leaned into it more, the trope was left underutilized so it lost a bit of steam. Now, was Juliette an absolute brat? Yes. Did she cross the line sometimes? For sure. Was she still the most interesting one? ABSOLUTELY. Both characters were a little hard to connect with, but I found Luca even more inaccessible. She existed somewhere far away I couldn't reach.

The spice was most certainly FUN- however, and maybe this is a personal gripe, we got sooo much detail about Juliette pleasing Luca, and when the tables turned, we got one paragraph and it was over. I needed more of Miss Brat Girl getting her world rocked :(