“The Deal” – Elle Kennedy|Book Review

Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Trigger Warnings: Sexual Assualt, talk of alcohol and drugs

“The Deal” by Elle Kennedy is one of those books that I bought because my online bookclub was buddy reading it and it just happened to be $1.00 on Amazon, so I thought “hmm…why not give this a try.” I don’t typically read contemporary romance, but want to start reading more genres outside of my comfort zone and genres that I don’t typically read. Let’s just say, that I absolutely loved this book and was not expecting it. I guess that happens when you don’t have any expectations going into a book you know nothing about except that its a romance with a hockey player.

We follow Hannah Wells, a music major at Briar University who is moving forward after being sexually assaulted in high school. We learn early on that she has gone through therapy and is working towards dating and allowing herself to be comfortable again. Then we have Garrett Graham, hunk and captain of the school’s hockey team. He is cocky, charming and sleeps with girls for fun. Our two main characters meet when Garrett runs into Hannah and asks her to help tutor him in a class he is failing and needs to pass in order to continue playing games. Hannah, of course, refuses because she is just as busy and has no intentions of getting involved with Garrett, but he is persistent and convinces her.

“I wonder if “sexy as fuck” is a requirement for living in this house.”

Hannah is interested into Justin, a football player, and with Garrett’s help, pretends to date him in order to Justin’s attention, but little do they both know that that never works and they end up falling for each other because they get to know each other and start spending genuine time together. There is a ton of witty banter, charm, and you just can’t help but fall in love with these two characters. I found myself laughing at a bunch of the things both Hannah and Garrett would say and felt like it was a genuine representation of college loves. I also loved that Garrett was very understanding about Hannah’s past, he protected her and cared for her and allowed her to be comfortable, especially at parties.

The only reason I did not give this book 5 stars was because I felt like it ended way too quickly and neatly. I wish the ending could have been expanded a bit more and thought it was rushed, but overall I did enjoy it and found it hard to stop reading and stick to the buddy read schedule.

“Sometimes people sneak up on you and suddenly you don’t know how you ever lived without them. How you went about your day and hung out with your friends and fucked other people without having this one important person in your life.”