Think your TBR pile is safe? Cute. Add the book with trauma healing and morally gray everyone right now 🔥Humans Don’t Have Horns coming out August 20 – preorder now
The Plot
Seventeen‑year‑old Shannon Lynch arrives at Tommen College desperate for a fresh start after years of vicious bullying and a home life ruled by her violent, alcoholic father. On her first day she literally runs into Johnny Kavanagh, Tommen’s golden boy with his own secret pain: an injury that threatens the professional career everyone expects him to have.
What begins as a quiet, tentative friendship, slowly deepens into something neither teenager knows how to name. But Shannon’s terror of standing out and Johnny’s mounting pressure on the pitch keep them circling, afraid to touch the one thing that might finally make them whole. The book ends on a cliff hanger and flows straight into Keeping 13 for the HEA.
My Breakdown
This book gave me:
🏉 A sports backdrop
💔 A heroine whose quiet courage made me ache.
🛡️ A cinnamon roll superstar determined to guard the girl who can barely look him in the eye.
🎧 Side characters (looking at you, Gibsie) who steal scenes and your heart.
The slow burn
If you like immediate pay off, pack extra patience. This romance crawls, but every shy glance and whispered “Are you okay, Shannon?” feels earned. When emotions finally break the surface, the reward is sweeter for all the waiting.
My heart.
My poor, poor heart.
I didn’t stand a chance with this boy.
Representation of trauma
Walsh doesn’t shy away from hard topics. Shannon’s anxiety attacks, Johnny’s hidden injuries, and the raw depiction of parental abuse hit like a hard tackle, yet the story balances them with humor, team camaraderie, and found family warmth.
“Yeah,” I replied gruffly, feeling like I would promise all the fucking promises in the world just to make this girl feel better. “I’ve got your back.”
The Irish setting feels lived in, the rugby scenes pulse with adrenaline, and Walsh’s dialogue swings from locker‑room riffs to gut punch confessions. Once you are “bound”, you will sprint for book two faster than Johnny on match day.
BUT, I thought a lot about whether I should review this book, since I DNFed the second one. I have reviewed series I did not finish in the past (I am a serial DNFer; it happens), so I feel fine with that. Yet this book has been so hyped that I want to be honest about what kind of read it is.
I think the flaw that made me DNF the second book does appear in the first, though it becomes more obvious later, and that flaw is repetitive writing. I loved this book and found the writing compelling; the characters felt real and deep, but the repetition is definitely there. These are very long books, and while the issue was tolerable in book one, I stopped at fifty percent of book two because I could not face more teenage jokes about condoms and endless debate over whether the MMC and FMC will have sex. I’m sure they do, but the constant discussion about it wore me out.
To be fair, the authenticity of teenage voices is a point in the author’s favor. The book tackles very dark themes yet never lets you forget these characters are teenagers. It has been many years since I was one, so that aspect appeals to me less. Perhaps the real problem with book two was not only the repetitiveness but the larger space given to teenage antics. For me that was a downside; for many others it is an upside, so it truly depends on what you enjoy.
Should I try another book in the Boys of Tommen series, or if I have lost interest in Keeping 13, will the rest fail to hook me as well?
Chloe Walsh’s website*
*links are unaffiliated, I just like helping out authors.
