Breaking the Ice (Juniper Falls #2)
by Julie Cross
Publication Date: December 26, 2017
Publisher: Entangled Teen
The second book in the Juniper Falls series from NY Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Julie Cross, perfect for fans of Miranda Kenneally and Abbi Glines.
Haley Stevenson seems like she’s got it all together: cheer captain, “Princess” of Juniper Falls, and voted Most Likely to Get Things Done. But below the surface, she’s struggling with a less-than-stellar GPA and still reeling from the loss of her first love. Repeating her Civics class during summer school is her chance to Get Things Done, not angst over boys. In fact, she’s sworn them off completely until college.
Fletcher Scott is happy to keep a low profile around Juniper Falls. He’s always been the invisible guy, warming the bench on the hockey team and moonlighting at a job that would make his grandma blush. Suddenly, though, he’s finding he wants more: more time on the ice, and more time with his infuriatingly perfect summer-school study partner.
But leave it to a girl who requires perfection to shake up a boy who’s ready to break all the rules.
SASCHA DARLINGTON’S REVIEWBreaking the Ice is the second Julie Cross novel I’ve read and I can assure you that if she continues to write fresh stories with winning characters, it won’t be my last.
Like Cross’ other Juniper Falls novel, Off the Ice, which I reviewed in February of 2017 (you can read that review here), Breaking the Ice involves interesting, multifaceted characters.
Fletcher Scott likes being in the background, especially after an incident in grade school almost killed him. He’s careful and smart and wants to play hockey on the varsity team even though he’s a senior who has been only playing on the jv team. It would also be defying the odds since his asthma can be debilitating.
Hayley Stevenson is one of the popular girls, who adores helping people. She admits that some of the things she’s done in the past have been messed up, but she’s trying to change. She has no recollection of the fact that when she was much younger she put cheerios up Fletcher’s nose.
Seemingly nerdy Fletcher and popular Hayley would seem like polar opposites, but instead they ultimately come across as soulmates. I like the fact that both Fletcher and Hayley are self-aware, mostly, and are growing. I’ve always thought that’s one of the best things about young adult novels. The teenage years are the times when people are changing and evolving more so than perhaps any other time in life. That alone can make for an interesting novel.
There’s a charm about Breaking the Ice that is welcome and appreciated. It has a sense of humor, sense of character, and an understanding of what it’s like to be a teenager and how the whole world is changing around you and you with it.
Hockey fan? Young adult reader? Love charming romances? Read Breaking the Ice. I don’t think you’d be disappointed.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
rating: 
4 butterflies and a ladybug out of 5 butterflies
Julie Cross is a NYT and USA Today bestselling author of New Adult and Young Adult fiction, including the Tempest series, a young adult science fiction trilogy which includes Tempest, Vortex, Timestorm (St. Martin’s Press). She’s also the author of Letters to Nowhere series, Whatever Life Throws at You, Third Degree, Halfway Perfect, Chasing Truth, Off the Ice and many more to come! Julie Cross was a longtime resident of central Illinois but has recently moved her entire family across the country to continue her academic studies at Stanford University.
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GIVEAWAY!! Signed copies of Off the Ice and Breaking the Ice + a $25 Amazon Gift Card (US) * INT winners will receive ecopies of the booksa Rafflecopter giveaway
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