The Striker

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses violence and sexual content.

“Everyone hated losing, but today’s loss stung particularly hard for me when I knew there were people actively rooting for me to fuck up at Blackcastle—namely, Holchester United fans who hated me for transferring to their biggest rival. I’d had plenty of naysayers growing up—teachers who thought I’d never amount to anything, football fans who thought I was a flash in the pan, press who dug for dirt in every aspect of my life—and I couldn’t stand proving my critics right.”

Asher Donovan’s reflections on his football career introduce The Tension Between Personal Desires and Communal Expectations. Asher’s sense of self at this moment is defined by his “naysayers,” whom he believes he must prove wrong. He fears that failing at football means failing as a person. This passage thus establishes his fraught relationships with his professional history and the work he has to do to overcome hardship and past trauma.

“It was easy to figure out why Frank Armstrong was singling out my brother and Asher. Their animosity had led to plenty of issues and resulted in Blackcastle losing this year’s league championship. Things between them were bitter on a good day, and Frank obviously wanted them to patch things up by forcing them to train together. That was all well and good, but unfortunately, that meant I was now caught in the middle.”

Scarlett DuBois’s summer training assignment with Asher and her brother Vincent DuBois acts as the novel’s inciting event. The assignment also inspires her and Asher’s unlikely connection and propels them into their forbidden romance. Even before they fall for each other, Scarlett anticipates how their dynamic might contribute to The Tension Between Personal Desires and Communal Expectations. Her and Asher’s relationship coincides with Asher and Vincent’s rivalry and heightens the narrative tension.

“The girl from the pub. She had the same midnight hair, the same red lips, the same piercing gray eyes that were currently boring a hole through my face. If it weren’t for the tangible heat of her stare, I would’ve thought I’d conjured her through the mere force of my thoughts.”

Asher experiences an emotional and physiological response when he discovers that the mystery girl from the pub is Scarlett—his summer trainer at RAB. He uses vivid details and descriptive language to depict how she looks and how he feels seeing her again. Asher uses a detailed visual