Book Review: “The Deal” By Elle Kennedy

This series has been sitting on my shelf for years and to be honest with you, I told myself if I didn’t pick the series up by the end of the year I would be unhauling them. I mean why let them collect any more dust and take up much needed shelf space if I was no longer interested in reading them?

The TV series is what brought new life to these books, I am one who sadly suffers from FOMO so I guess these books were given a second chance at life. Only time will tell if they will earn a permanent space on my shelves or if this was just a “phase”.

“I want to murder him in his sleep, A. No, I want to murder him when he’s awake so he can see the joy on my face when I do it.”

Elle Kennedy, The Deal

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Synopsis

She’s about to make a deal with the college bad boy… Hannah Wells has finally found someone who turns her on. But while she might be confident in every other area of her life, she’s carting around a full set of baggage when it comes to sex and seduction. If she wants to get her crush’s attention, she’ll have to step out of her comfort zone and make him take notice…even if it means tutoring the annoying, childish, cocky captain of the hockey team in exchange for a pretend date. …and it’s going to be oh so good!

All Garrett Graham has ever wanted is to play professional hockey after graduation, but his plummeting GPA is threatening everything he’s worked so hard for. If helping a sarcastic brunette make another guy jealous will help him secure his position on the team, he’s all for it. But when one unexpected kiss leads to the wildest sex of both their lives, it doesn’t take long for Garrett to realize that pretend isn’t going to cut it. Now he just has to convince Hannah that the man she wants looks a lot like him.

Synopsis From GoodReads

“I fight back laughter.

“As you wish.”

“Did you really just Princess Bride me?”

“Did you really just use Princess Bride as a verb?”

Elle Kennedy, The Deal

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Rating

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Review

I may not think that this book was the most well written book I have ever read but sometimes its not always about the skill of the writing but the vibes that the plot brings out. I had a fun time reading this book and that’s what matter the most to me by the end of it. I read this book really quickly which is always a great sign to my overall enjoyment.

Our main female lead, Hannah, has a past trauma regarding being Raped when she was in high school so if this is a trigger warning for you I recommend being cautious picking this up. While the book doesn’t go into too many details regarding this, the trauma is mentioned quite often and ultimately plays a big part in the characters development both personally and in relationships. This is a trope that I often try to avoid myself but I didn’t have too many issues with this topic in this particular book. I liked how the book handled this sensitive topic for the most part. The over arching theme is that your trauma does not define you but that it is okay to allow yourself the time and space to heal. I really enjoyed how her friends and family reacted to her story and didn’t beg her for further information that she wasn’t ready to share.

“And the most important lesson I learned is that I’m not a victim—I’m a survivor.”

Elle Kennedy, The Deal

I am a sucker for fake dating so I was really excited about that factor of this book but lets be honest.. it never really felt like fake dating to me. You could tell these two were head over heals for one another all too quickly so that pay off just wasn’t there for me. With that said their chemistry felt off the charts and that is what I loved about them the most. They were really able to lean into the trust aspect really easily and that had me falling hard.

Garrett Graham became a top tier book boyfriend for me by the end of the book but at the start I was honestly a little iffy about the whole thing. I just don’t love a reformed playboy but lets be honest… that is literally all of these men in this series so I just need to get over that I guess. Someone who is so cocky just gives me the ick, and he was beyond cocky at the start of this book so I was happy that that seemed to quickly dissipate as the love started to bloom. The hottest part of his character was that he truly fell first and that will always cause me to be wrapped around a book boyfriends finger.

I ultimately loved all the side plots and characters in this book and that makes a strong story for me. I WANTED to know about each of their passions, friends and family. I found myself looking forward to the music writing scenes or the ones where they were just hanging out with their group of friends. When we got to go to Thanksgiving with Garrett’s Dad I was so exciting cause we got to dive farther into his past when it felt like we mostly heard about Hannah’s and not his. Just overall the plot of this book was fun and interesting and I can’t say that about many romance books.

After finishing this book I immediately wanted more so I downloaded the second book “The Mistake” so I could learn more about the characters in this universe. When a book leaves me wanting more that is a great sign!

“How did I go so long without noticing you, damn it? Why did it take seeing a stupid A on your midterm to make me notice?”
He sounds so genuinely upset that I scoot closer and kiss him. “It doesn’t matter. You know me now.”
“I do,” he says fiercely.”

Elle Kennedy, The Deal

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Off Campus Season One Review

Okay, this is going to have spoilers for both the book and TV series so if you have not read and watched the show I suggest skipping this part. There may be spoilers for book two “The Mistake” and Book three “The Score” so keep that in mind.

I have a love hate relationship with the book and series now that I have finished both (at least the first two books of the series so I could be missing some fundamental plot lines for the TV series). I know I have some controversial opinions so just remember that we are all allowed to think what we want and we can agree to disagree if we need to. I am happy to have a health conversation about our opinions.

Casting

Lets start out with what I think is the easiest category for me to discuss, Casting. I have only read the first two books so I don’t feel like I can get the most accurate feel for characters who show up later but we will cross that path as we go.

Overall I enjoyed the casting. I only had a few minor issues which I feel is pretty promising! This will not be a comprehensive list.

• Garret Graham: Belmont Cameli
  • Belmont was probably my favorite casting choice in this show so far. I think his acting was really great. He felt right for the role in my opinion. He was good looking, able to make me feel his emotions and ultimately gave off the right vibes for his character. I felt as if he understood his character really well going into the show and that is the most important part.
• Hannah Wells: Ella Bright
  • Oh man, Ella was probably my second least favorite casting choice which is probably the first controversial opinion I am sharing. I just was not convinced by her acting. Her character has a really emotional arc and her acting just didn’t really let these emotions shine through for me. Don’t get me wrong, there were times where I felt like “Hey, now that’s Hannah.” But most of the time I just wasn’t connecting to her character.
• Ali Hayes: Mika Abdalla
  • I love Ali’s character in the first book, I have not yet gotten to book three which portrays her story so I feel like my opinion on her casting might not be the most valuable insight. TV show Ali did not entirely match my expectation of the Ali I know from the book but despite that I think Mika is a good actress and really embodied the screen character she was playing. I feel like If I do end up reading her book that her on screen character will make more sense to me.
• Dean Di Luarentis: Stephen Kalyn
  • Again I have not read Dean’s book yet so I don’t know his character all too well. I mentioned above in my review of the book that I don’t love a reformed fuck boy but by the end of season one I was really enjoying Dean’s character. I think Stephen will do his character justice and make the next season a good one.
• John Logan: Antonio Cipriano
  • I am an Antonio super fan so I am probably bias when I say that I absolutely loved his acting in this series. The puppy dog yearning eyes get me every time. I feel like Antonio shows his emotions really well when acting and that’s very important to me when connecting to characters. I can not wait for his season as I feel like it might be my personal favorite of the show.
• John Tucker: Jalen Thomas Brooks
  • Tucker is such a fun side character and Jalen was a lot of fun to watch during the show. You don’t get to know him all too well so it can be hard for those characters to shine but Jalen really steals some of his scenes and I really loved that. I am excited to see what he does with his character as the show goes on.
• Justin – Josh Heuston
  • Lets be honest, my least favorite character by far. His acting was fine I guess… All I can say is not my Xaden Riorson ….IYKYK…

Plot Changes

In my mind I almost have to separate the TV series from the book. In my personal opinion, I feel like there were too many changes or adjustments for my liking. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that in order for us to an adaptation for any of our favorite books there will have to be changes but that doesn’t mean we have to like that, we just need to accept them in order for us to enjoy the show. So with that said the changes made did not make me dislike the show it just made me a little frustrated.

1. The biggest change that bothered me was that she was no longer doing the show case because she was a singer. She was a musical composer which is close enough I suppose, But for some reason this really bothered me. By the time we got to the end of the show where she was able to overcome her writing block it did make up for some of that frustration but man the song she wrote was not good… Sorry not sorry.
2. Related to the Show Case change was having Justin and Cass’s Characters be morphed into one character. I really enjoyed the Cass plot line in the book, it gave me a character to hate without making him a huge part of the story line. It made the show case actually interesting in my opinion. One good thing about this change is that her liking Justin actually made sense. She is a musician and so is he it felt natural for her to form a crush on him rather than a football player. Also they only had 8 episodes so to find time for two characters instead of one would have been much harder. We do get a glimpse at Cass in episode one or two I believe when she shares her musical composition with her class to get their opinions, which I appreciated.
3. This one really pissed me off and honestly I might move it to my number one spot. But Garrett breaking up with Hannah? Excuse me?! The Garrett I knew would have never let his ego get in the way of his relationship. The third act break up did not make sense to me in the show. In the book I can understand why Hannah called things off with him due to his horrible father but the show literally did not give me a good reason for this. Well okay except for maybe helping Hannah over come some of her traumas and given her something to write about I guess… But I think this could have been done no matter who broke up with who.
4. Ali in the book felt like such a better friend than in the TV show and I think that is because again we were only given 8 episodes to work with and they moved up Ali and Dean’s season to season two so they had to rush their story line which I feel like caused them to lose focus on the best friend aspect between her and Hannah and hoped that we could just sense the strong bond between the two of them and I felt like I didn’t feel it as much as I should have. I hope that as the seasons progress we will get to see their friendship deepen.
5. John Logan has an older brother in the books and as far as I can remember not a younger sister. Jules was kinda just thrown into this show and it threw me off a bit. I am curious how this will affect Logan’s back story. In the books it is also his dad who is an alcoholic and not his mom but I am not sure this will make too big of a change for the shows plot, but we shall see.
6. One that makes me sound super nit picky is that Della’s Dinner and Malone’s Bar was combined into one location. I understand this on a filming aspect but again story wise I just didn’t love it.
7. A change that after reflection I didn’t mind was that Hannah’s Attacker was on the opposing hockey team and Garrett Beat him up on the ice. In the book it was just one of the attackers friends who defended him when everything went down who happened to be at the St. Anthony’s game and Hannah saw him so Garrett attacked him in the concessions. I think plot wise the change makes more sense and made for a more convincing fight scene.
8. Where was the car sex scene after Thanksgiving?
9. One that I actually liked was that Hannah had a bike instead of borrowing someones car every time she needed to go somewhere. That detail in the book just felt really weird to me, she practically had possession of that poor girls car more than the girl did.
10. Dean and Beau sharing a birthday party was one that I didn’t mind but it also made it so there was one less party for Hannah and Garrett to connect at. It made sense for the shortened timeline we had with 8 episodes though and it really helped Beau and Dean’s friendship shine through which I think I didn’t really get in the book.
11. The campus wide hands off law was one of the greatest things in the book. It felt very “Garrett” coded. but because of the way the break up happened in the series just didn’t allow the Off hands law to make as big of an impact and felt like it was just tossed into the show for the readers.

Now that I am done ranting about the changes I know it sounds like I hated the show but that’s not true. I did enjoy the TV series quite a bit but I can’t let myself compare it to the book. My husband was sick of hearing me say “This is not how it happened in the book.” He would just roll his eyes. And I am sure I missed several other changes but these are the ones that really stuck out to me.

“Living well and being happy is how we get over the shit in our past.”

Elle Kennedy, The Deal

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Now that I have gave you a review for the Book and my thoughts on the TV show I guess it is time to tell you my thoughts as a whole. I had a fun time with the book and the series really brought the characters to life. I see myself continuing to watch the series as new seasons are released but I am not sure if I will continue with the books. I finished book 2 “The Mistake” (review coming soon) but I don’t know if I care enough about the characters who are left in the series to finish reading them. While the books happen to read very quickly I just have so many other books that I am actually dying to read. However, this would not be the first time I eat my words.. I am almost positive that after watching Dean and Ali’s season I will wish I would have read their book. So I make no promises.

I hope you all give this book and TV series a try and I hope that you love every second of it.

“Sometimes people sneak up on you and suddenly you don’t know how you ever lived without them.”

Elle Kennedy, The Deal