Celine Ong's Reviews > The Long Game

started crying at page 1 word 1 and only stopped at page 496. that's a lie i'm crying while typing this. honestly perfect

“i’m so glad i met you,” ilya said quietly.
shane’s heart clenched. it was such a simple statement, but it was so open and honest.”

✼ thank you to the carina press & netgalley for sending me an arc of the long game in exchange for an honest review.

i’ll start off by talking about game changers as a whole. 5 current books, 5 times i put my heart in the palm of rachel reid's hands; 5 times she gently returned my heart, each time slightly warmer, slightly fuller, slightly more full of hope.

and now, once again, i give her my heart.

i’ve only met shane and ilya not too long ago, but i already missed them terribly. each time they were mentioned in other books, i would go faintly feral. so to say hello to them once more, i can breathe easy again. it feels dramatic and yet insufficient to say that i cannot physically contain my love for them. after all, i have been loving them very loudly.

it’s been 10 years since shane hollander & ilya rozanov started seeing each other. 10 years of secret kisses, secret homes, a secret love. to tell the world of their relationship risks impacting shane's hockey career, but ilya is tired of hiding. he wants the closeness, the intimacy. so now, it’s time for them to make a call.

the long game was everything to me. there were scenes that made me cry with my entire body, there was one where i literally put down my e-reader and ran a lap around the house. the love was so overwhelming - their love for each other, and our love for them.

“when will i have you for as long as i want?” was my absolute favorite line from heated rivalry. to me, it truly encompasses the secret relationship, the cost of fame, the sheer pure love for each other that is tearing at the seams and yet they try to keep it contained, even if it hurts each time.

in the long game, this gets taken up a notch. and it was glorious. when i think of going the distance for love, i think of shane and ilya - two people cradling each other’s hearts, protecting it against the loneliness, the harsh culture of toxic masculinity, and making it happen against all odds. how i wondered how they would build a life when constantly on the move, only to realize that home is each other.

with every interaction, every touch, every thought, it’s so clear how much they truly love each other, how well they know each other, the utter charm of how much they make each other smile.

shane and ilya were rivals. rivals-with-benefits. something more. lovers. a love story that spans thirteen years. they were inevitable.

at this point (although i knew it long ago), i would trust rachel reid with my heart.