I am a huge fan of the Off-campus series by Elle Kennedy and I gave all those stories 5 stars, with the exception of the last one, but it was still 4,5 stars for me 🙂 so when I heard that we will get a spin-off / sequel-ish series set at the same university I was thrilled 🙂 especially since we met both Summer and Fitzy in that original series and I wanted to see how the romance between them will go… so trust me… no one is more disappointed that me that this was only a 2 stars story for me… I had several issues with this book, but explaining all of them will include talking spoilers, so I will have the next part of my review totally spoiler free when I will be a bit more vague but will still try to communicate my feelings, and then the last part will be filled with spoilers and concrete reasons why I ended up with only 2 stars for this rating…
The main reason why I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I wanted and hoped I would, was actually the main couple… and I mean both of them individually as characters and the romance between them… I found Summer annoying and just a little bit too much and Fitzy was a jerk… I definitely didn’t see them together, and not because I have something against opposites attract theme… I’ve read some really great books with couples like that 🙂 nope, the problem here is that there’s no build up to them becoming closer… they basically don’t have any interactions in the first half of the story… it’s more like he wants her but thinks she’s too much and don’t want the drama… she wants him and is a bit confused with his mixed signals… they don’t really talk about anything or spend any meaningful time together and then bam! they are together… ugh… not to mention that there is the matter of them being roommates and her sort of going out with another one of their roommates and I just… *throws hands in the air and sighs heavily* I just couldn’t with both of them…that’s all I can say while I stop myself from spoiling you stuff, so now I will jump into all my more detailed thoughts… fair warning, they will be in a totally random order, because even though it’s been days since I finished it, I just can’t seem to gather them in any sort of logical way 🙂 ok, ready? 🙂
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All my spoilery thoughts about this book:
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#1 Summer was all over the place… and I get that some part of it was because she has ADHD, but it was tiring to read… she met Fitzy about a year before and he caught her eye immediately, but acted like he’s not that interested in her… yet she kept hanging on that infatuation… at the beginning of the book during a New Years Eve party she overhears him talk about how he thinks she’s fluff and shallow and stuff like that… so she kisses Hunter at midnight…and even though she heard all those hurtful words, she’s still crushing on him…
#2 Fitzy is a jerk… yeah… that one was a surprise for me, cause I didn’t got those vibes before… but how else can you explain his behaviour? he’s attracted to her but decides that she’s too much drama so he won’t make a move… and yet he keeps hanging around and acting like a douchebag towards her…
#3 there are basically no interactions between them throughout the first 50-60% of the story… #NoJoke… there are a handful of short conversations, usually during a party or some other gathering with friends, but almost none when they actually talk… that made it very hard to get on board with the romance between them… I could understood the attraction, but nothing else… and then we get this very surprising scene… so like, after almost zero getting to know each other, ad her overhearing him talking stupid stuff about her, during one of the games he gets injured and Summer sneaks into the locker room to check up on him… and them gives him a bj… I mean… what? huh? just… why??? right after that, his teammates come back to the room, so she sneaks before they can see her and they don’t talk about it… to make matters even worse, he basically disappears on her for like two days after that… and yet she’s still hung up on him!!! I mean, come on!!!
#4 the whole Hunter situation… he’s interested in Summer, especially after their midnight kiss… and like a good friend, he talks with Fitzy and declares his intentions, asking him if he has a problem with it… and Fitzy being a stubborn idiot of course deny any attraction… and yet he’s pissed when Hunter flirts with Summer… don’t even get me started how he reacts when Hunter takes her out on a date… which is after the bj I mentioned earlier… I think… he barges into her room a few minutes before she’s going out saying she should stay… but giving her no reasons whatsoever for that… ugh… and Summer is no better… she decides to pursue things with Hunter even though she’s still very much hung up on Fitzy… which is so unfair to him… because during said date Hunter of course sees that something is not right… it doesn’t take him a long time to figure out what’s going on… he drops her off back home soon after and drives away and it doesn’t take her more than a few minutes to go to Fitzy’s room and sleep with him… at which point I was like “Hunter, you deserve soooo much better”
#5 there was an iffy situation going on with one of Summer’s professors… but it was.. I wasn’t the biggest fan of how it was handled… it felt like a lot of slow build up to a big and what felt like a rushed ending… I can’t quite put my finger on the specifics, but I didn’t like it…
#6 again, the whole romance between Fitzy and Summer… I don’t get it… there was no real build up, it’s like at some point they just decided to give into the attraction and become sort of a couple but not exactly… it was more like Summer finally convinced him to give them a chance, but he never really changed the way he acts around her… closer to the end they sort of have a talk about why he acts the way he does, but again… I didn’t really see any change in him… and because they didn’t really talk, I can’t seem to get behind of them being together…
Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact that we meet characters who will get their own stories further in the series, and I didn’t want to miss scenes with them, I would DNF this book… but I had to persevere because of Brenna 🙂 she’s the heroine of the second story and my favourite part about this novel… not to mention that I am looking forward to book #3 which is gonna be published next month, to see who will Hunter end up with 😉
Hey, can you upload THE PLAY, another book by Elle Kennedy of this series?
Thank you very much!
Hi can you upload the rest of the book. Thank you