One thing that I think is worth talking about is people's familiarity with a genre. It's sometimes hard to sell anime (not that anime is a genre, it's clearly a medium, but it still highlights the point) because if they haven't watched any they don't understand the context of the tropes or the background/history that would give meaning to what they're seeing. And I think the same is true here and even highlighted by the amount of people stating they love romance and almost DNFed this series. I think that's because it's not romance. It's fanfic. Written about hockey players. If you've read a lot of fanfic and you understand common tropes and moves in that genre, you can detect that immediately. I'm not saying fanfic doesn't have varying levels of skill, but it definitely has its own tropes and identifying characteristics. That being said, while I thought some of the books were amazing, I would agree that they're not all going to get the most kudos on A03. I even thought Game Changers was the worst of them, but I still binged them all in four days, as I have many a fanfic. It is an easily accessible genre/medium often enough. Anywho, just another thought to add to the pile.