Olympic Enemies — Rebecca J. Caffery
4 stars
I picked this up specifically because I wanted an Olympics book, and it delivered exactly that. Sometimes you know what you’re looking for and a book just hands it to you — that’s the best feeling.
Oliver and Lucas are both members of Team GB’s gymnastics squad, rivals for five years, and now forced to share a room at the Paris Olympic Village for three weeks. The grudge between them runs deep — rooted in a qualifying competition years ago where Oliver took the spot Lucas wanted — and being crammed into the same space while trying to compete at the highest level in the world does not help. Until it does, in the way these things tend to go.
The setting is genuinely one of the best parts of this book. The Olympic Village, the gymnastics competitions, the pressure of performing in front of the entire world, the media scrutiny — it all feels alive and specific, and Caffery writes the sport with enough detail and love that you feel the weight of what these characters are risking every time they step on the mat. If you’ve ever been glued to gymnastics coverage during the Games, this book will scratch that itch completely.
The supporting cast deserves particular mention. The rest of the British gymnastics team — Tom, Julius, and the others — are fully realized and genuinely fun to spend time with. They give the story warmth and grounding, and the found-family dynamic of a team that’s been through everything together comes through clearly.
Now for the honest notes, because I always leave them.
The writing leans heavily on telling rather than showing in places, which occasionally keeps you at a slight distance from the emotional moments when you want to be right inside them. And the book is closed door — no explicit content at all — which is a choice I respect but wasn’t what I was personally hoping for. If spice is a priority for you, know that going in.
And Lucas. Lucas, Lucas, Lucas. There is a hospital scene where Oliver is laying there vulnerable and in pain and Lucas turns it into a conversation about his own career anxieties. I wanted to reach through the pages. He redeems himself, and the ending absolutely delivers, but that scene tested my patience in a way that felt very real and very human — which is, when you think about it, a mark of a character well drawn.
Four stars because it gave me exactly what I came for: the Olympics, the sport, the tension, and the happy ending. Loved it.