One thing I want to do in 2025 is find more romance authors who are creating work that I really enjoy. In the past year or two, several of the authors who I previously relied on either moved to other genres, haven’t published anything new, or their most recent works involved tropes or characters I really couldn’t vibe with. So I picked up The 7-10 Split by Karmen Lee full of optimism, since it’s the first book in what looks like a planned trilogy, with the next two books due out later this year.
This book looked so cute. Sure, I’m not in to sport romances (which is a big part of my struggle, why is everything about hockey all the sudden?!?), but I could get into the idea of former high school friends turned bowling rivals turned co-coaches of the next generation’s bowling team at their alma mater. I was ready for some sweet, sexy fun.
Unfortunately, The 7-10 Split really failed to hit with me. It was less than 200 pages on my ereader, and that didn’t feel like enough time to build the characters or their romance. So much of the book felt just sketched in, like a first draft that didn’t get fleshed out. For instance, our main characters Ava and Grace are both teachers at the high school they attended. There’s a side character named Janae who is also a teacher. What does she teach? I honestly don’t think that was ever established.
Another thing that felt weird to me is that it’s only been ten years since Ava and Grace graduated, but it doesn’t seem like anyone at the school — the other teachers, the principal, the librarian — was there when they were in school. It’s established early on that the school has had a hard time keeping and attracting talent, but it felt unbelievable to me that there literally would not be one old teacher around a mere decade later.
This book also engaged in a lot of telling rather than showing, including telling us things after the fact. To use an example that isn’t particularly spoiler-y, Ava and Grace get into a conversation about what they’ve been up to in the last ten years, and they learn they have a lot more in common than they expected. What do they have in common? I don’t know, because we don’t actually see the conversation play out. We’re just expected to believe they have a lot in common. This feels like the sort of thing that would work better in a movie — show me a scene of the two of them laughing over dinner and I’ll believe they’ve bonded, but in a book, I want to actually experience it!
To be fair, this appears to be a debut novel. I may go ahead and check out the rest of the trilogy to see if Lee grows as an author. This book wasn’t bad and didn’t have any deal-breakers, it was just a very ho-hum read that failed to live up to my relatively high hopes that it would really sparkle.
CWs and TWs: Although there’s mentions of there not being many other Black teachers at the school and how hard it is to date as an LGBTQIA+ person in a small town, this book didn’t really feature any on-page racism or homophobia, which was refreshing. Both main characters have experienced past death of a parent which still impacts them. There is strong language and explicit sexual content.
Source and Format: I borrowed the ebook from Sno-Isle Libraries.
Reading Challenge Prompts
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): Feeling Sporty. I am literally never feeling sporty. I am the least sporty person you’ll ever meet. Luckily, there’s actually not a lot of bowling in this bowling-themed romance. I only learned one thing about bowling in this book: apparently there’s an oil pattern on the lanes.
Brick & Mortar: Fiction Published in 2024. This book was published in May 2024. Book 2 is coming later this month and book 3 in August. Having spent so much time reading epic fantasy, it’s amazing to me to see a series where three books are coming out in less than a year and a half, instead of waiting 5+ years between books!
Reading Challenge Progress
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 0 of 25, no bingos.
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 1 of 25, no bingos.
Book Riot: 0 of 25.
Physical TBR: 0 of 12.
Brick & Mortar: 3 of 25, 0 bingos*.
*I’ve already completed one of the non-reading prompts, hence the mismatch with the number of reviews!