Thirty Love

Reviews

• Frida

  Started April 13, 2026 · Finished April 14, 2026

  What Thirty Love does extremely well, and what I think needs to be said right at the start, is that this book takes the sports in sports romance seriously! Tennis here, is not a vague backdrop for flirting in locker rooms, but a living, breathing structure underneath the entire book. This is a book for people who either already care about tennis or are genuinely willing to meet it on its own terms. It talks about Grand Slams, rankings, training, pressure, form, legacy, sponsorship, media presence, and the mental strain of trying to peak in a sport that does not wait for anyone. If you are in the mood for that, this really works. If you want the sport to stay in the background while the romance takes centre court, this may feel a little too technical, a little too invested in the mechanics of the game! There are several leitmotifs running through this that I thought were genuinely strong: time slipping away, the pressure to win before it is too late, self-worth being tied far too tightly to performance, the long process of emancipating yourself from other people’s projections, and the difficulty of building an identity that belongs to you rather than to family, sponsors, public opinion, or the sport itself. There is also a really compelling father-son / mentor-mentee dynamic woven into the story, and I think the book is often at its strongest there. It understands how messy love can become when it is filtered through ambition, disappointment, legacy, and the desperate wish to be seen for who you are rather than for what you represent. And yet. . . . For all the things I admired here, I never fully lost myself in the romance. Part of that is the structure. This is very much Leo’s book in terms of introspection, and while I understand why that choice was made, it also means Gabe remains more distant than I wanted him to be. And the romance itself, while definitely the life thread of the novel, is not exuberantly loud. It is quieter, steadier, more restrained. That will absolutely work for some readers, especially if they like slow-burn sports romances where intimacy builds through trust, communication, and mutual recognition rather than explosive chemistry. But for me, I think the relationship could have used one or two more chapters of depth, just to let it settle more fully into itself.

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• Chiara 🌩

  Started June 7, 2026 · Finished June 10, 2026

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