Review: The Wall of Winnipeg and Me
Another shout out goes to ma girl Nins once again for the great book recommendation. I should’ve seen this one coming though, since it’s by an author we’ve both read before and one she’s already recommended to me. And as per usual I dropped everything I was doing (including a 1500 word report I had to do for uni) and immediately picked up the book and read it. The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata was great.
Like Kulti, it was a contemporary romance based in the context of professional sport, in this case, the sport was NFL, or gridiron or whatever (I’m not familiar with it 100% because I’m not American, haha). One thing I loved about Zapata’s books, is that you don’t even have to know heaps about the sport itself to follow the story and get into it. I also thought it was kinda cool learning about the sports involved – what little info there was anyways, haha.
The female protagonist was Vanessa Mazur, who worked as an assistant to an injured pro footballer. I liked her because she worked super hard to accomplish her goals and ended up being able to do what she loved as work, and at such a young age too! She was pretty badass I think, well I guess just because she knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to work hard for it, or lapse back into old habits. She wasn’t fazed or star struck by the fact that she was working for a pro footballer – she was just a normal person. One thing though, I didn’t particularly enjoy her nickname: Vanny, I think it’s just hella weird. I guess Van is alright, but Vee would probably be better.
The male protagonist however, was Aiden Graves, pro footballer for the Three Hundreds; also the boss of Vanessa (for a little while at least). He’s your typical male athlete, arrogant, always gets what he wants, and doesn’t really give two shits about anyone other than himself. I liked seeing his character develop throughout the story, as certain events unfolded and as his interactions with Vanessa increased.
So storyline wise, I actually really enjoyed it. It wasn’t what I expected at all, and was vastly different from Kulti (which is not surprise). I loved reading the story and following as all these events unfolded, and watch as the romance between Aiden and Vanessa grew until it finally happened. Slow-burn romances are super great to read about and I love it, except when I’m really impatient about wanting the couple to finally get together, haha. The circumstances that brought this relationship about were kind of weird and a little bit out there, but I actually didn’t roll my eyes at it.
Overall I enjoyed it heaps and I cannot wait for more sports romance novels by Zapata!
