Book Review: First and Forever, Lynn Painter

The queen of witty banter does it again.

I rated this book 3.5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

A huge thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group | Berkley for sharing an advanced readers copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.

🏈 Where are my football girlies at?

This is such an underwritten subgenre of romance, but I suppose that’s because CTE isn’t necessarily a romantic quality that we’re all turned on by, anyways, I digress. Besides the fact that our main male character was a football player, and our main female character was a mega fan, the football jargon, actual season practices and events, and much more that I would expect from a sports romance were not there. I constantly kept saying, “wait, he can’t do that, he’s in season” or “shouldn’t he be at practice or conditioning or weights or something right now?!” Football in America is such a celebrity status sport that there’s no way this player would have been able to do half the things he did out in public ESPECIALLY during season. If this was written with an off season timeline then I wouldn’t even be batting an eye about these issues right now. Needless to say, I’m still thrilled to see another football romance be added to our shelves.

💕 Is this a fanfic?

Reading First and Forever, all I kept thinking about was how this book is probably going to be compared a lot to some sort of Travis Kelce fanfic romance. Our main male character is a tight end, a bit of a silly goose, and a massive giant which is very in line with a Travis Kelce personality. We all know that Lynn Painter is a diehard Swifty, so this just makes sense. However, all that being said, I would argue that this leans more towards a Jason and Kylie Kelce sort of romance if you can ignore the fact that Jason was a center unlike his tightened little brother. Our main female character is so Kylie coded with all of her quick comments and no bullshit attitude. She’s a football fan first and then a girlfriend to a football player second which just screams Kylie to me. But I may be biased because I’m 100% more a Kylie fan than a Taylor fan.

😅 I could smell the third act conflict coming from a mile away…

The blurb of this books lays it out there that this relationship is going to be one put on as a PR stunt. “Harboring this secret can only blow up, but all he knows is that if he messes things up with Duffy, it’ll be the greatest fumble of his life.” Hmm, so what do you think is going to be our main point of conflict for a third act break-up. I’m literally not even spoiling the book for you… it’s all right there. Part of me hoped that Lynn Painter would surprise us all with some healthy communication up front between the two main characters, but no. Even as opportunities arise, we continue to push this under the rug. I was eating up this book otherwise, so my biggest (and really only) gripe was the glaringly obvious conflict and then the kind of cliche way in which is was resolved.

In conclusion, three and a half stars is a good rating. Don’t expect something out of this world or jaw dropping, but if you’re looking for a fun little romance set in the football space then this is for you. I’d recommend this book to football lovers, fans of the Kelce fam, and anyone else who loves Lynn Painters easy writing and quick banter.