Any Way You Slice It – Kristine Carlson Asselin – Wicked Whale Publishing – Published 15 November 2017
♥♥♥♥
Synopsis
Penelope Spaulding just can’t catch a break. Between long hours at the family pizza shop, piles of homework, and her dad’s new obsession—getting the restaurant on a new foodie reality show—it’s hard to find a spare moment to breathe. But when she laces up her skates and steps on the ice, the world is hers to control and everything else slips away.
When the bad boy who lives down the street dares her to join the Rink Rats, the local misfit hockey team, she surprises herself and joins in silent defiance of her controlling parents.
The more she plays, the easier it is to keep lying, and soon Pen finds it impossible to come clean. She’s sneaking out to practice—and loving every minute of it. It doesn’t take long for her to fall in love with hockey…but she’s not entirely sure if it’s the game she’s falling for or the boy. Because it can’t last. As soon as her dad finds out, she’ll be benched. For good.
And the one thing she IS sure of…she can’t stop playing.
My thoughts
Ice hockey. Cute romance. Pizza. What more could you want? Any Way You Slice It is the perfect light-hearted YA contemporary.
For Penelope, skating gives her a break from school and endlessly working at her family’s pizza restaurant. When Jake, resident bad boy and her old friend turned we-don’t-speak-anymore-because-of-that-6th-grade-incident enemy, asks Pen to join their recreational ice hockey team, Pen surprises herself by considering it. But she knows her father will never let her play hockey, especially now when he is solely focused on getting their restaurant on a (sure-to-be-humiliating) TV show. But Pen can’t resist the game or Jake’s company and soon she is wrapped up in a tangle of lies, which, if she doesn’t manage a spectacular interception soon, is set to be revealed on national TV.
