From Lukov with Love
Reviews
“Hopefully I don’t lose my balance and my foot goes up your ass—” This was hilarious stop
I've only read about two of Zapata's works before this one and had such a fun time. However, I do feel there is a constant misdirection within her characters and the background she gives them.
It almost feels lazy.
Jasmine, for instance, felt almost three-dimensional but wasn't? I loved her internal conflicts with purpose, competitiveness, and fear of disappointing her loved ones— you would expect being born into a Mexican/Filipino family would have a lot to do with those topics but somehow relevant issues like these are blurred and never mentioned again in the novel.
I know it's supposed to be a sporty/romance novel. But when you give your characters backgrounds like this and mentions of trauma I believe it's always important to provide them with time to discover that.
Same with Ivan. Yes, he's grumpy, yes he loves animals, what else?
Also, how come she mentions she has a best friend and they only interact TWICE from beginning to end? eye twitch
Anyway, I'm not an editor so who am I to judge?
psa: a man calls me meatball trying to be endearing and I'm swinging bye.
a fantastic slow burn romance novel I laughed, I cried, I got angry and frustrated. I don't know if I've ever read any novel as well written as this. It's on a different level, I don't know if I'll ever forget it for the rest of my life.
i have mixed feelings about this, like i loved parts of it a lot. but also i have a real issue with grown women acting like they’re 16 years old, and she acted like she was 16 years old the entire time even though she was pushing 30… also like she did nothing? like this entire book was him loving her so much and taking care of her and whenever he did open up or admit anything vulnerable, she would skip over it? also omg she’s a really bad friend to that guy’s sister. like a very bad friend. awful tbh. and he was weirdly really upset AT HER for having a stalker????? like … what? AND THE STALKER THING WAS NEVER TOUCHED UPON AGAIN?!
LOVED LOVED LOVED THIS BOOK! Had me in tears by the ends… IVAN is everything and JAS such a badass I love her, the endless bickering between them is to DIE for, Zapata just became my favorite author QUEEN OF SLOWBURN
This was a great love story! <3
why why why why why why did i read this
“I’m okay with you having ten other people be your favourite. But you’re always going to be my favourite person,” he finished. “Always. No matter what.” I’m a sucker for such a good slow burn contemporary romance. Who would’ve thought I would be so invested in a sports, enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, forced proximity novel? It would’ve been a solid 5 star read for me if it wasn’t for Jasmine’s inner monologue. I can’t believe the characters are supposed to 26/29 but they seem soooo immature in my head. I was so excited that there would be figure skating elements but so much potential could’ve been developed during their practices and competitions but it felt a little dragged out with their constant banters instead of feeling the tension between them. I absolutely love the character development throughout the book and their friendship is so precious! I liked their friendship > romance aspect overall. To be called “meatball” and be hugged by Ivan. Adore, adore this book! 🥹
This is, by far, my favorite Mariana Zapata book. I loved it so much. From the beginning until the end. It had me smiling and crying so much. I LOVEEEEEED everything about this book. I loved seeing the family dynamics; it was so sweet and fun. I love Ivan and Jasmine so much; I love their relationship. It was so nice to see the buildup of their relationship, and I'm glad their banter didn't die down. I loved seeing Jasmine grow, and seeing how Ivan shows his love toward Jasmine. It was everything. Beautiful, phenomenal. One of my favorite books ever. I love the rivals to lovers trope, so I knew I would eat this up, and it did not disappoint. I love it so much. No words can even explain it.
Acho que eu finalmente descobri meu tipo de romance preferido: slow-burn. E Mariana Zapata tem o maior slow-burn da história, parece que os protagonistas nunca vão sequer se beijar. Mas de alguma forma ela consegue fazer isso sem parecer forçado, ou chato, e sim natural. O relacionamento de Ivan e Jasmine cresceu da maneira mais linda possível, de forma que os dois se apoiam mais do que qualquer outra coisa. Uma das coisas que eu mais amei nesse livro foi a família da Jasmine, leria mais uns 5 livros sobre eles. Releitura: tirei uma estrela!! Não porque vi algum defeito, continuo achando o livro muito bom. Mas agora sou capaz de comparar com as outras histórias da autora, que são um pouco melhores. Foi meu primeiro livro dela, me fez apaixonar pelo slow-burn, que continua sendo meu estilo preferido de romance. Inclusive leio todos dela assim que lançam <3
some parts of this book felt very, very redundant. i felt like i had re-read a certain line over and over again and i'm pretty sure that was one of the reasons why i felt like i couldn't really stay with the book. while i finished it, i didn't really end up liking it as much as i did when i started the book. the whole enemies-to-lovers slow burn is exactly the type of story i live for but this one wasn't it for me. 2.5 stars.
this book had me feeling some kind of way and Lukov certainly helped with that hee hee
3.5/5 I mean lo disfrute pero no es world-shattering amazing idk... De que esta entretenido y ya, te diviertes pero naaada del otro mundo. Peeeero el final me saco lagrimitas debo de admitir jajaja. So nostalgic idk ahajdjskdhsolwpsdb
4.5/5 ⭐️
3.5 stars
i loved this book far more than i ever thought i would. i loved jasmine’s family dynamic, i loved jasmine and i loved ivan. i only wish we’d seen more of karina because i’m positive she’s a bad bitch.
helloz universe, may i order a Ivan Lukov? Ivan lukov will be in my top 5 Fictional men. I loved this book. even though it's so slow bc it's a slow burn, it's entertaining and funny.
[2.5/5] it was kinda cute but the writing made me want to put my head through a wall, istg if I read ppl "blinking" at eachother ever again I'll kms
ep. bueno, me gustó y disfruté leerlo pero no me gustó tanto como pensé que me iba a gustar
Sooo good. Bit slow but that makes it more intens when something happens. Love it
i love this book so much
Ivaaaaaaaaaaaan! This man means the world to me! argh, I fell again for a fictional man. My favorite scenes are all the times when Ivan defeats Jasmine's dreams, or when he shows his affection and friendship through actions for her, or when he simply takes care of her when she is sick. In others words, FLWL is one of my fav books due to Ivan. Anyway, let me put some effort to convince you to read FLWL. If you love: - grumpy girl; - sports romance; - slow burn; - nemesis to friends to lovers; - he falls first; - partners in crime and everything, so this book is for you. Please, go read! If didn't work, let me show you one of my fav quotes, which is: “There’s my Meatball,” he said in almost a whisper, his fingers loosening from around my wrist until they were slipping through mine, holding our hands together like we had done it a thousand times. Because we had. “We’re doing this, right? Together? I won’t make fun of you, but you can make fun of me a bit?” This was my second experience reading an MZ book and I was beyond amazed. I love how Mariana Zapata writes her book, I love the slow burn, the sexual tension, the construction of the characters, and how we always get a happy ending. The song I dedicated to them is I GUESS I'M IN LOVE because Jasmine suffers a lot in others hands, but when she is with Ivan he made all the fears of her disappear, at the same time she's so afraid of falling in love with Ivan and do not be reciprocated.
Easy and cute read! Not my favorite characters and the loved lacked in my opinion but nonetheless I was entertained!
OML THIS BOOK WAS JUST CHEFS KISS🤌 it was so hilarious (jojo especially) and it didn’t even feel like i was reading!!! my fav book atm
Highlights
I loved my family. And I loved figure skating. And I sucked at loving both.
You are who you are in life, and you either live that time trying to bend yourself to make other people happy, or… you don’t.
I’m not going to give up what I love just because I might not have it forever.
The things that kept me up at night weren’t physical. Worrying about being a failure and a disappointment weren’t things you could just fix. They were just there. All the time. And if there was a way to work on them, I hadn’t learned how to yet.
I believe in you. In us. Regardless of what happens, you will always be the best partner I've ever had. You'll always be the hardest working person I've ever known. There will only ever be you.
You are who you are in life, and you either live that time trying to bend yourself to make other people happy, or… you don’t.
Because I'm okay with you having ten other people be your favorite. But you're always going to be my favorite person. Always. No matter what.
😭
I love you so much I spend all day with you, and it still isn’t enough for me,” he kept going. I stopped breathing. “I love you so much, if I can’t skate with you, I don’t want to skate with anyone else.” Holy. Fuck. “I love you so fucking much, Jasmine, that if I broke my ankle during a program, I would get up and finish it for you, to get you what you’ve always wanted.
...
barely caught on to the fact that the top drawer of it was open... barely caught on to the fact he was holding white sheets of paper that he shouldn't have seen and shouldn't have known existed, when Ivan's head snapped up and I saw, I saw, his face was a color it shouldn't have been.
And then he lost it.
"What the hell is this?" he asked, shaking the papers in his hand, angrily, so angry, so fast, I really felt bad.
Only for a second. But it still happened.
The breath I hadn't realized I'd blown out of my lungs, came back in me before I managed to hiss out, "What the hell are you doing looking through my things?"
It was a sign of how angry he was that he didn't immediately have a comeback for me.
It was my fault. I knew he was nosey. I knew he was nosey because I was nosey. But damn it! Those papers had been in there safely for years.
Ivan ignored my question, crushing the sheets in his hand so tightly, they formed partial balls. "Who. who...?" he stuttered, another sign of how furious he was. Ivan never stuttered. Never faltered. And even his neck was going red.
He gave the papers another shake. "Who did this?"
I swallowed.
"Who sent this shit to you?”
“Ivan—“
He shook his head holding the papers dropping until his fist bumped against his thigh, his head cocked to the side in anger. I’m so much anger, I could almost taste it. “Don’t ‘Ivan’ me. Where did these come from?”
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
Love to me was honesty. Being real. Knowing someone's best and worst. Love was a push that said someone believed in you when you didn't.
Love was effort and time. And while I'd laid in bed the night before, it had jumped out to me that maybe that was why I had taken things so badly months ago when my mom had made it seem like I loved figure skating more than her. Because I knew it was like to not be important to someone.
He squeezed my hand again.
At that moment, the doors behind him opened and I could hear my brother and James arguing, followed by my mom talking to my sister about how she shouldn’t keep things from her mother. The hypocrite.
“I’ll get going then,” my partner — my friend — said, slipping his hand out of mine gently and effortlessly. "I’ll see you tomorrow. Get some rest. Call if you need me.”
I nodded, this... something... pressed right at the center of my chest.
And before I could think about what I was doing, I went up to my tiptoes and kissed what I could reach — Ivan's chin.
He looked down at me with an expression I had never seen before.
It pleased me. So, I smacked his hip and said, “Drive careful, Satan."
…
He swallowed so loud I heard it. "I believe in you. In us. Regardless of what happens, you will always be the best partner I've ever had. You'll always be the hardest working person I've ever known. There will only ever be you."
I sobbed into him. These fucking tears just purging themselves from me. His affection, his words, his belief were just... too much. They were too everything.
And I was so greedy, I needed them. I needed them like I needed to breathe.
"I’d give you every ribbon, trophy, medal, anything at my house or at the LC if it meant something," he told me. "Tl give you anything you want if you stop crying."
But I couldn't. AndI didn't. Not for every medal in the world could I stop. Not for any and every figure skating honor I'd been dreaming about for half my life, could I have stopped.
I just kept on crying. For my dad. For my mom. For my siblings. For myself.
For not feeling good enough. For not feeling enough. For doing what I wanted to do despite all the noes and the eye rolls and all the things I’d had to give up along the way. All the things I’d lost that might someday regret more than I already did.
But mostly, I cried because while I didn’t care what most people thought of me, I cared too much about the people whose opinion I did value.
My voice broke. Totally just snapped in half.
And that was when the first wave of tears hit my eyes, and I gasped to keep them inside of me. To fucking keep them in because I wasn’t going to do this. I wasn’t going to fucking do it, especially not over my dad's comments.
But your body doesn't always listen to what you tell it. I was well aware of that. But it still felt like a betrayal when it didn't hold in the tears I was trying to keep a rein on.
And Ivan's arms tightened even more, pulling me in the millimeter left until we were plastered together from thighs to hips to chest.
We kept going.
I made time for my family on Saturday nights, when Ivan usually joined me unless one of his "kids" was sick. And on those rare days when one of them didn't feel well, I'd drive out to see him on Sunday, and we'd hang out at his house and take them for a walk, or watch television on his big, comfortable couch. And twice, I'd brought Jessie and Benny along with me, and it had been just as fun, because Lacey might be a little sassy ass with a side-look that impressed the fuck out of me, but she loved kids.
The only pictures he had up were either of him with his family, candids of his pets, and his family in general. I happened to be in two of them.
It was all very interesting.
Something uneasy burned through my belly. "I get it, Ivan. Without me, you can't compete. Trust me, I get it. I know it. I'm not planning on screwing you over. I didn't mean to get sick and screw up starting our choreography. You know I'm sorry."
The look he gave me....
"You're my friend, Jasmine. Not just my fucking partner. Don't give me that bullshit."
I reeled back at his tone and watched his face get furious.
"I want you to be safe because you matter to me. You think I bring my partners to my house? You think I let them into my life? You think I spend time with their families? I don't, and I never have. I learned my lesson when I was a teenager and my partner tried to blackmail my family by saving they paid for us to win our junior events. That’s why I do contracts now, to keep it professional. I don’t ever want to be as unhappy as I was after my first partner did those things to my family and me. But you…”
"And I made it with almond-coconut milk. You don't need the extra dairy," he kept going, still holding that damned mug half an inch from my chest as I stood there.
He'd made me hot chocolate.
Ivan had made me fucking hot chocolate. Without marshmallows according to him, but he wouldn't have known that I only treated myself to hot cocoa with marshmallows on very rare occasions.
How he knew — why he even had the mix — couldn't handle. I just couldn't process it. It was like that moment when he and Lee had asked me to first partner up with him, like I was on drugs and didn't realize it.
Ivan Lukov, the greatest frenemy in my life after my siblings, had made me hot cocoa.
He being domestic with her is SO CUTE