BOOK REVIEW: "The Deal" by Elle Kennedy

By: Ali Hummel

Trigger Warnings: Mentions SA, domestic violence, and terminal illness in relation to the book's plot.

Spoilers for the book are included in this post as well.

Let me begin this review by acknowledging that an improvement has been made! The cover for The Deal is ten times better now. Yay! The original cover is the photo to the right. The new cover is to the left.

I do not understand the concept of putting real people on the cover of books. To me, it automatically ruins the overall reading experience. I feel like I'm reading one of those small, trashy romance novels with a shirtless man on the cover riding a horse. No hate to those who enjoy the small and trashy romance novels though. The point of those books is that they're just entertaining and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. That is exactly why I picked up The Deal.

Originally published in February of 2015, The Deal is the first book in Elle Kennedy's "Off-Campus" series. The story follows college student Hannah Wells and she has a big crush on a football player. In order to make him jealous, she strikes up a deal (lol, get it?) with the bad-boy/star hockey player of the college, Garrett Graham. Garrett is failing one of his classes so Hannah reluctantly agrees to tutor him in exchange for helping her make the football player jealous. Hannah and Garrett start fake-dating each other and over time, the lines between what is fake and what is real begin to blur. A classic fake-dating turns real trope!

I read The Deal in January of this year and it took me about a week to finish it. There are many parts of this book that I thought were entertaining but the two things that grabbed my attention were the dual POV (point of view) and the main characters actually having a connection outside of physical attraction.

The book alternates between chapters told in Hannah's point of view and Garrett's point of view. I especially appreciated Garrett's point of view and I liked how he was genuinely a complex character. He wasn't just an attractive hockey player placed in the plot to solely be Hannah's love interest but he had real feelings and trauma. For example, Garrett's relationship with his father plays a big role in this story.

Garrett grew up in an abusive household. His father abused his mother for most of their marriage before she passed away from cancer when Garrett was very young. Garrett's father abused him more frequently after Garrett's mother's death. Additionally, later in the book, Garrett's father blackmails Hannah by telling her she needs to break up with him/have zero contact with him or he'll stop funding Garrett's basic necessities including his college tuition. Despite all his trauma, he opens up to Hannah and lets himself have a secure relationship because of course, Hannah and Garrett end up together. So in my opinion, Garrett's a decently well rounded character. Is he a likable character though? I'll get to that in a minute.

Hannah also has her trauma. In her point of view, we learn that Hannah was assaulted at a party when she was in high school which she believes has ruined all future sexual experiences for her... until Garrett is in the picture. That's all I will say about that but besides her traumatic experience, there isn't much more depth to her. In my opinion, that seems to be the only part of her backstory that shapes her as a character for the rest of the book. While Garrett's father is quite significant in the story, Hannah's family is rarely mentioned. All we learn about her family is that her parents are financially unstable. Their instability only comes into play when Thanksgiving rolls around and she has to go to Garrett's house instead because they cannot afford to send Hannah home for the holidays. Regardless, Hannah wasn't completely insufferable like some other female main characters I've read about.

The second thing that I appreciated about this book is that Hannah and Garrett had a connection besides being physically attracted to each other. In fact, their entire fake-dating scheme began because Hannah was attracted to a different guy. The whole book didn't revolve around their sex life which was refreshing for an adult romance novel. Of course, there were a couple steamy scenes (in chapters 24, 29, and 36) but it didn't take away from Hannah and Garrett's connection.

Setting the likable qualities of this book aside, let me tell you why I was hesitant to read this. I did some digging (aka reading people's reviews of the book) and there were some questionable things that happened in the book that I forgot about (I'm writing this review about a month after I finished the book). After reading a couple harsh reviews, I remembered how persistent Garrett was. Remember I said Garrett was a decently well rounded character, not a likable character. He couldn't take no for an answer. The first few chapters was Garrett practically stalking Hannah, begging for her to tutor him and it got old. REALLY OLD. Another thing that makes me livid is that Hannah explains to Garrett why she doesn't like to drink and he tells her that he thinks she should drink anyway because he'd never let anyone hurt her. Sure, the protective guy trope is nice but is it being protective if he's forcing the girl to drink when she's not wanting to, even though he's going to "keep her safe"? Questionable, for sure.

I ended up rating this book 4 out of 5 stars. It was cheesy, full of tropes, and spicy (the term that book social media uses for presence of sex scenes). Overall, I thought this book was entertaining. It was by no means well-written, in fact it is practically a novel straight off of Wattpad (popular website for fan-fiction), but it was a fun read nonetheless. Pick up this book if you want a basic college hockey romance with some spice. I'd recommend this for 18+ due to mature subject matter.

Thank you for reading!

All images found on Google.

The description of the book and links on where to purchase it can be found on the author's website as well.

Elle Kennedy's Website: https://www.ellekennedy.com/offcampus