Tomboys Don’t Crush On The Captain (How To Date A Tomboy Book 3)

Tomboys dont crush on the captain. How to date a Tomboy #3
This was such a great book. I enjoyed it very much. The problem is that Nicole and her brother are very close and she did not want to destroy that by being interested in her brothers best friend.
She had a secret crush on Ian but she is too afraid it will become awkward for her brother.
Will she go out with Ian and be happy or will her brothers happiness come first?

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

Enjoyable, YA, mostly G-rated, multicultural, sports romance

Ian Cruz has been next door neighbor to Chris and Nicole Fraser (Ian calls her “Nikki” and Chris calls her “Nic” and/or “Coley”) since all three were small children. The story begins the summer before Nikki’s junior year and Chris and Ian’s senior year. Nikki is 16, and the boys are 17. The setting is a small town in Pennsylvania near a big lake.

Ian’s ethnic background is Puerto Rican, Nikki is Honduran and Chris is Filipino. The Frasers, who are both wealthy doctors, and who live in a mansion, adopted Chris when he was a baby and Nikki when she was six. Ian’s family is wealthy, as well, but his parents are divorced. His mother deserted both Ian and his father years ago, and ever since then, his father has been too depressed to have any interest left over, after work and nightly bouts of drinking at local bars, to pay attention to his son. Fortunately for Ian, it greatly mitigates his tragic family situation that the warm, loving Fraser elders have gladly served as substitute parents to him all these years.

Ian is best friends with Chris and, though he has always treated Nikki as a little sister, he has secretly been in love with her from the moment he met her when he was only seven years old. He has desperately wished for the past five years that he could date her, but over-protective Chris would absolutely freak out if Ian ever admitted his true feelings for Nikki. Chris doesn’t want any boy to date his sister, including his best friend.

Nikki is a terrific soccer player and has played on her school’s team for years, while Chris and Ian have chosen instead to be part of a competitive rowing crew for the past five years. Their crew, of which Ian is the captain, consists of an eight-man team rowing simultaneously in a long, narrow boat called a shell. The coxswain (“cox” or “coxie”) sits at the stern facing the rowing team and has the responsibility of motivating, steering, and calling out commands to the team during a race. Nikki hasn’t paid much attention to their rowing and as a result knows little about crew until Ian and Chris draft her into replacing their regular coxie, who has flaked out on them for the entire summer.

At first Nikki resists filling in. She’s a very good swimmer, and she would not be called upon to row, but she hates to look like a clumsy fool, which she fears would be inevitable if she took on the role of coxie, given her total inexperience compared to the professionalism of the rest of the crew team. It’s also a bad idea for her to spend endless hours a mere two feet away from, and directly facing, a ripped, bare-chested Ian, because she fears he and her brother will inevitably notice she’s been secretly in unrequited love with Ian for years. She loves him not merely because he is gorgeous, but because of the fact that, in spite of his looks and popularity, Ian has remained the same kind-hearted boy he’s always been since they were very young.

Ultimately, Nikki can no longer continue to refuse the heartfelt pleas of Ian and Chris when Ian good-naturedly taunts her into giving the coxie spot a try by playing on her competitive spirit. To the exhilaration of Nikki as much as the crew, she turns out to be the best coxie they’ve ever had. With her slender weight at the helm, compared to the much heavier former coxie, and her quick grasp of the essential principles of being a coxie, the team beats their best time ever. Chris and Ian are convinced that, with Nikki on the team, they have a much bigger possibility of winning a major competition in the near future, which will greatly increase the probability that both Chris and Ian will be awarded coveted crew scholarships to Princeton.

As passionate as Nikki is about soccer, nothing she’s ever experienced before beats the thrill of flying across the water while controlling the rowing maneuvers of eight powerful athletes. And best of all, acting as their coxie gives her an excuse to spend more time with Ian than ever before, both on the water and off it, as he trains her in the many commands a coxie must know. The only problem is, as the days and weeks speed by, it becomes harder and harder to keep her steadily intensifying romantic feelings for Ian to herself.

Things I liked about this novel:

I love it that Nikki is very athletic and very smart. The most enjoyable scenes of the book for me are the ones where she is acting as coxie for Chris and Ian’s crew. I knew absolutely nothing about crew before reading this book, but the story concept intrigued me enough that I went and looked it up. It immediately became clear to me that this author does a very good job of authentically portraying the sport.

I loved that Ian is a talented cook and eats a very healthy diet. Which, unfortunately, is quite unusual in YA novels, even for portrayals of elite athletes, who in real life pamper their health in order to obtain the best possible performance in their chosen sport.

I liked Nikki and Ian individually and as a couple. They are both active protagonists, with strong story goals. They are also both compassionate, endearing people who make a believably compatible couple. Ian is a very metrosexual, Beta hero, who is *not* promiscuous, which is something I personally very much appreciate in a YA romance advertised as G-rated AKA “sweet.”

It was fun to read a YA novel in which most of the scenes take place somewhere besides a generic high-school setting.

I appreciated that the author offers the alternating points of view of both Nikki and Ian, which gives the reader a chance to get to know Ian very well. He is definitely a hero worth knowing.

Things in this novel that bothered me somewhat:

It was a little jarring, and somewhat convenient for providing backstory and ultimately for resolving the main romantic conflict, when the author briefly switches to Chris’s point of view at several crucial points in the story.

Though all three of the main characters belong to an ethnic minority, Hispanic for Nikki and Ian, and Asian for Chris, social groups which are far too often cruelly stigmatized and often outright persecuted in US society, this story does not deal with the social issue of bigotry. In fact, there is no social drama in this novel, and only a little background family drama for Ian, and brief mentions of the psychological drama of the emotional toll of being abandoned by their birth parents for Chris and Nikki. In particular, Ian does not drink because of his father’s alcoholism, which is admirable, but it is never explained how his father has managed to continue to hold down a presumably high-paying job, since Ian lives in a ritzy neighborhood with all the trappings of great prosperity, when his father seems to get drunk every night. My issue is: Why insert such traumatizing issues if they are going to be sidelined?

I was surprised that the author refers to Puerto Rico as a “foreign island.” It is a territory of the USA, and Puerto Ricans are US citizens.

Though generally G-rated, with no cussing and no sex, the author includes a party in which there is underage drinking presented as typical to teenage life. At that party, Nikki gets drunk and is pawed by one of the crew members, which moves this book out of G-rated into the PG-13 range by my reckoning.

I read an ARC of this book, so perhaps this problem will be fixed in the final version, but Nicole’s family is referred to in this book sometimes as the “Kramers” and sometimes as the “Frasers.”

Overall, this is an enjoyable teen romance, which is a mixture of comedy, toward the beginning of the book, and drama, throughout the last two-thirds of the book.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 4 stars
Hero: 5 stars
Subcharacters: 4 stars
Romance Plot: 4 stars
Rowing Plot: 5 stars
Family Drama Plots: 2 stars
Writing: 4 stars
Overall: 4 stars

NOTE: I received an ARC of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

I volunteered to read this ARC for an honest review. I enjoyed this story about Ian and Nicole. He’s the neighbor boy and her brother’s BFF. Here’s crushed on her for a while but a promise to Chris keeps those feelings hidden. When the guys need Nicole’s help with crew it starts a chain of events that alter their lives. Feelings are hurt and mended throughout the story. Great beginnings of a true HEA.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

It took a while for Nicole and Ian to figure it out, but this book reminded me why I love this trope so much. A wonderful happily ever after!

Nicole is a soccer playing tomboy with a secret crush on Ian, her brother’s best friend and crew captain. Ian has loved Nikki since he moved in next door but being close with her family proved difficult to let her know. While filling in as coxie it became evident that their feelings would be difficult to hide.

Great story. I love the ‘tomboy series. The characters are well developed and the story lines are refreshing.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

Company

I really loved this YA romance between Nicole and Ian.

Nicole and her brother Christopher are both adopted into an amazing family were both parents are doctors but they always have time to spend with their children. Ian is the next door neighbor who becomes Christopher’s best friend but also gets a close friendship with Nicole throughout their childhood and he is also treated like a second son of their family.

The summer before Nicole’s junior year of high school and Chris and Ian’s senior year, she becomes the coxswain for their crew team and she starts going to the crew’s parties and hang out a lot more with Ian.
She has a huge crush on Ian but knows she can never have him because her brother specifically asked them not to fall for each other but also because why would he fall for the tomboy who plays soccer and who has never had a date or kissed a boy before?
This summer changes them and all three of them start to open up to each other but misunderstandings and heartbreaks occur too. Will everything be okay in the end?

I loved Ian. He is such an amazing guy who has his troubles at home but finds comfort in the family next door and he doesn’t give up fighting for what he wants. He is so warm and kindhearted and will do anything for the ones he cares for.
Nicole is wonderful too, but I think she was too quick to judge and do stupid things with consequences but then I had to remember that she is 16 or 17 and doesn’t know better. She also fights with her insecurities of being adopted and being a tomboy.
Chris is a little bit annoying to me because he was so wrapt up in being good looking and girl crazy so he didn’t see what was going on around him but that was also wrapped nicely up in a talk between Nicole and him.
The story is told in three perspectives.

The representation of different nationalities was amazing. Nicole is from Honduras, Chris was from the Philippines and Ian was from Puerto Rico.

I can definitely recommend this book.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

More Spinning! This series has been a spinoff from another series where Benjamin worked with a couple of other authors and each wrote one book in the trilogy. Here, Benjamin prepares to spinoff yet again and opens up the world in a bit of an interesting new direction while having at least one direct callback to another book in this world. Discussed the actual sport in question a bit more than is typical within these books, without sacrificing the focus on the couple in question, and also has a few “extra perspective” chapters that Benjamin has seemingly taken as part of her style here. Very much recommended.

Chris and Ian were best friends. Nicole was Chris’s younger sister. She had always been secretly in love with Ian. Ian has always been secretly in love with Nicole. This fun and exciting story follows these three as they work their way through the trials of friendship, loyalty to family, chaos of teen years and falling in love. Good read

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

(2.5 stars) – a bumpy ride

SPOILERS INCLUDED

I’ve enjoyed this series, regretfully however, this 3rd book was more frustrating than fun. There were a lot of things I really liked, but there were also several things that really bugged me

I admit that when I started reading this book, I was thinking ‘oh no, not another my brother’s best friend trope where they’ve both been secretly longing for each other for years’. But the author hasn’t disappointed me yet, so I dove in. I always like when books introduce me to new things, & it was interesting learning a bit about rowing/crew.

The story played out more or less as expected. When the first conflict hit, I totally got Nicole being hurt, but why didn’t she respond by pulling Ian aside to demand what he meant by his cryptic “plans for us” comment (it may have been obscure, but it certainly hinted at something stronger than friends). Even as an immature teen, that would have been my first response – “so what did you even mean by that then?” And I think that would be most people’s response.

However, it was still reasonably realistic for Nicole to go with Noah & get caught up in stupid drinking games, but it was painful to watch. That’s a part of my high school years that I have no interest in reliving. At least the negative consequences from it were totally realistic, too.

Nicole’s anger at the overprotectiveness seemed like an overreaction already, but – the part where the story nearly lost me – she has them announce in the lunchroom that she’s “on the market” – had me going what the heck? She might as well have had them announce that all users were welcome to take a spin with her. Ugh, just no. She may have been off limits, but she wasn’t sheltered. I couldn’t believe overprotective Chris agreeing to do it for a moment, & I was relieved that Ian refused.

Nicole’s running away from Ian to avoid hurting Chris didn’t seem true to her character, either. It ended up feeling like it was being overdramatized for additional angst & dragging things out. (And I especially dislike overprotective brothers who are themselves players not getting called out on their hypocrisy)

The author does write some fun flirty moments, as always. The romantic scenes with Ian were really good, especially their first date. Unfortunately, the off moments interspersed between kept pulling me out of the happy.

*Clean romance level: passionate kissing, but no graphic details

*Language: One use of d—

Religion: A half dozen uses of the Lord’s Name in vain (mostly as “omig-d”), sadly & unnecessarily, but at least not as curses, fwiw