"Acceptance has an amazing effect on people who pretend they don't need it."
I’ve been excited to read Running with Lions from the moment
I heard about it in April. The blurb sounded like a YA version of one of my favorite new
adult/adult contemporary romance series—Glasgow Lads, by Avery Cockburn—about
an all-LGBT football (soccer) team. YA is my first love. My love for soccer fiction has been established. Of course I couldn’t
wait to dive into Running with Lions!
And boy, this little book did not disappoint.
I’m a sucker for sports fiction, even though I’m not at all
sporty myself. Something about the
camaraderie, the teammates that become friends that become family, the
unification for one purpose…speaks to me. Add in a dash of romance and it’s swoon
city. Running with Lions is a wonderful portrayal of such a family. Diverse,
real, flesh and bone characters you fall in love with. Characters with real
problems, real vices, and real love and support for each other as they wade
through a messy, hot summer.
And then there’s Sebastian and Emir. Oh. My. I almost can’t
handle the adorable. Seriously, could these two be any cuter? I don’t think so.
Friends to ‘enemies’ to sort of friends to lovers? Yes, please. I loved every
swoon-worthy moment of their journey.
My one and only complaint: written in third person, with a
cast of almost all male characters, the pronoun ‘he’ is thrown around in sentences
often without an identifier. This sometimes added up to confusion on my part.
The first couple of chapters I had to reread sentences to figure out which ‘he’
was being referred to. Normally, that would affect my rating. However, those
few times of stumbling did not alter my enjoyment of the book as a whole. In
fact, as the book went on, my confusion and frustration lessened as my interest
and investment in the characters and their story increased.
In short, Running with Lions ran away with my heart. Full of
camaraderie, courage, and major cuteness. Julian Winter’s debut is the best
kind of read.
A solid 5 stars.
"Sebastian doesn't want to care about anyone's opinion. It's his friendship, not theirs. But being a teenager is one good day of being a superhero, followed by a hundred days of being self-concious about every little damn thing. It's one big, selfish moment when you don't give a shit about other people's opinions, but you still want your friends to love who you are and what you do."
