Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Pucked Up (Pucked #2) By: Helena Hunting


I just want to take a minute to say thank you so much to Helena and her crew for sending me out this amazing ARC.
I absolutely loved Pucked and couldn't wait to get my hands on Buck and Sunny's story.

And let me tell you, this one did not disappoint :)




Miller “Buck” Butterson has been banging his way through life ever since a puck to the face fixed his messed up front teeth, and he was drafted into the NHL during his first year of college. After five years of deflecting goals on the ice and scoring them with puck bunnies across the Continental US and parts of Canada, Miller is ready for a girlfriend. A real girlfriend of the non-bunny variety. One he takes on dates and doesn’t jump into bed with after five seconds of conversation.

Miller thinks he’s found that woman in his teammate’s sister. Except, unlike Alex Waters, center, team captain and all round nice guy—who happens to be dating his step-sister—Miller’s manwhore reputation is well earned, and not blown out of proportion by the media. Beyond that minor detail, Miller doesn’t know the first thing about having a girlfriend. But he’s determined to make it happen.



What he doesn’t take into account is the amount of time and effort relationships require, or that constantly letting bunnies take selfies with him to post all over social media isn’t going to win him any points in the boyfriend department. Miller learns—not so quickly—that if he wants to make Sunshine “Sunny” Waters fall for him, he going to have to do a whole lot more than show her his stick skills in the bedroom.


Ok I just want to give everyone fair warning before you dive into this one. I had one of my favorite reviews I have ever written done for this book, and Blogger deleted it *GRRRRRRR, so thats why it's taken so long to write, and it was even supposedly saved so *DOUBLE GRRRRRRR. So this is my second review of the book, and while I still hope you enjoy it, I just want to warn you that it also is never as good when you have to go back and re-write something. Plus I am seriously running on like no sleep and it's already 2 AM as I finish this baby up and move on to the other 2 reviews I need to have done.
Just please bear with me through this one, and I really hope you enjoy it (I tried, I was just so mad after the first one got deleted and I mean I really think it was one of the most fun reviews I had written and then it was all gone and I just got depressed even thinking about having to do it again, but I really hope I can convince you to go grab a copy of Pucked Up, because it is a truly funny and good book and ya'll will love it)



Like I said at the beginning. I absolutely loved Pucked and couldn't wait for Pucked Up to be here. Helena has this awesome way of writing that will leave you laughing hysterically and have you connecting with her amazing characters from page one.

We got to meet Miller "Buck" back in Pucked. He's Violet's step brother and well if you've read the book you know that him and Vi are pretty close and she overshares most things with him. He was one of those characters that gets painted in a particular way and as the books go on you start to see more depth too. Back in Pucked we're introduced to him as this Puck Bunny lover that jumps from girl to girl not really caring who it effects. It even gets him traded to Chicago after he has a uh short lived bunking of his old coaches niece. But as this story goes we start to see that Miller isn't just this dumb manwhoring hockey player everyone makes him out to be. There really is a lot more to him than we saw back in Pucked and I loved how Helena made me like him so much as this book went.

It wasn't that I didn't like him back in Pucked, but the way he was portrayed made him one of those characters you kinda just don't know if you should like or not. He has a revolving door of woman in his life, and seems kinda careless how any of that will effect his life. He's a good guy, but that gets over shadowed by all the bad press.

But I'll get to all that here in a bit.



What or rather who I want to talk about now is Sunny.
She is one of those characters that I am going to admit I really didn't like most of this book.
Please don't take it the wrong way, she is a good character and I understand why she was written the way she was, but I spent a good amount of the book very character slap happy. Just the way she lets everyone boss her around and influence her drove me batty. Plus her lack of trust for Buck was something I had a heard time with. I know a book has to have some sort of confrontation, but lord this girl was really one that just brought so much drama into things. Things that really didn't need to have that much drama.
And I know, I probably sound like I'm being mean here, I really don't mean to be that way. I'm obviously giving this book 5 stars so there can't be too many bad things I can say here.
And there are some great qualities about Sunny, like how much she cares for her family and how passionate she is about her yoga classes and work at the animal shelter and stuff, and oh gosh her fashion. I loved it, she has this laid back easy going feel a lot of the time with the things she dresses in and such. And one thing that really had me laughing, and more out of a personal joke was her wearing the Birkenstocks (I had this chorus teacher in high school who was this real hippy type and she wore those dang shoes everywhere. She even had this pair with sparkles on them that she would wear to our competitions when formal wear was required. The amount of jokes that we dumb adolescents made at her and her shoes expense bordered on the obscene really. There were many the Jesus sandal references in those jokes too)
Sunny is a sweet girl, and while she does have her flaws I think she is a good fit for Buck when it's all said and done.
See I can be nice hehe

I also want to mention that Sunny's BFF is kinda a witch. She is a big part of the problems I had with Sunny I think, and while she did redeem herself as the book went, and we get to see this nicer more understanding side, I could have smacked her too lol
Although by the end I was ok with her, I will say that. I just had to get through all the Buck hating she brought to the story. (Here I go again, being all downer over here. Sorry ya'll)
She was a nice addition though to some more relevant things that will happen in the future and I was happy with how she wound up in the end like I said.



And now I want to talk about Buck. Again. hehe
He is just the kind of guy that you want to love. He has a terrible reputation but under all that garbage is the most loving caring man there could be.
He does a lot for charity, cares about his oversharing stepsister, and tries to change everything about himself for the woman he wants to be with and dare I say maybe LOVE.
Bucks biggest problem is he has the words worst luck. I mean seriously, the man has the worst case of wrong place wrong time I have ever seen. and not only that but some of the funniest mishaps I have ever read. And not just him, Sunny has her fair share too. And I have to say I have never felt more bad for a fictional person in my life.
And all of these mishaps lead to why there are so many problems between him and Sunny. While extremely funny, they do bring to light the things that come with dating a professional hockey player. Especially one as well known and with an inflated reputation as Bucks.
I mean let's face it, if any of us happened to score a super famous hockey player we would all probably have some issues to work out. They're faces are all over sports news, puck bunnies fall all over them. they are pretty hot and built. There is a whole lot to deal with when dating one, at least I assume, considering I have no experience when it comes to dating hot hockey players hehe. But I do know that if Ben Bishop ever decided he wanted to have a relationship with me I would jump on that ride so fast *SWOON


But back to Buck
He really does try hard to get things changed around, but his need to not want to show all the good things he does leads to not many people seeing just how amazing he really is. 
Did I say that already? Pretty sure I'm just repeating myself now. As much as I want to tell you I love Buck I just don't think I have anymore left to say without it just being more of the same thing. As said before, this is me re-writing my review (which was perfect before Blogger decided to be a butt and delete it, and now it's 2 AM and my brain has just given up the trying to be witty and entertaining thing.

So moving on.
I just want to say how much I loved the interaction between Violet and Buck in this one. The Yeti jokes (So many Yeti jokes) were hilarious and I really enjoyed seeing how much farther their relationship had come between books. With them both dating siblings it makes for kind of this fun entertainment where a whole lot of personal stuff gets shared. And I mean Violet shares EVERYTHING. Which is hysterical and I am warning you don't read this book at night with everyone asleep like I did because you will spend the whole time trying to muffle your uncontrollable laughter and your family will not be happy with you in the morning ;) (love you adoring family)
I also just liked seeing these bits and pieces on how Alex and Violet in general were doing with their relationship and all that fun stuff. Alex is still a total hot head and there were some epic him and buck show down moments.
It's always fun though to see how characters you invest your time reading are doing though. I've said it in past reviews, but I use to hate that style of writing and now it's something I look forward too. I like getting the continuation of the story I loved while also building this entire fictional world that has so many characters and so much depth to it. And Helena definitely gives us that. I also want to add that because of her I officially want to plan a trip to Canada now. I've always wanted to go, but I think now would be the perfect time. Someone find me a good looking sweetheart that will show me around there and I will be set hehe



So if you haven't guessed it. I really did love this book, despite y Sunny ranting and all. It had a good mix of characters and a hilariously funny story line. Plus the romance stuff is always really good.
Helena writes the most amazing books and I hope you go not only pick up copies of this series but her other ones too. They are just as good and I'm telling you, ya'll will love them.

I give Pucked Up: *****5 Stars*****


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