Review: The Deal (Off-Campus #1) by Elle Kennedy

The Deal (Off-Campus #1) by Elle Kennedy
Publisher: Audible Studios 
Publication Date: November 3rd 2015.
My rating: 4 stars. 

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.

I really hadn’t been feeling YA books for a while, I had binge read several books by Lauren Layne and thoroughly enjoyed them, but I was in the mood for my good run to continue and when I stumbled across Elle Kennedy’s Off Campus series, I’m thrilled that I decided to give it a go, because it was exactly what I was after. I love the set up of popular guy falling for the girl that he’d never noticed before. I loved the situation that Garrett and Hannah found themselves in, because it was done so well, Garrett was failing his ethics class and if he didn’t pull his grade up in his makeup exam, this could prevent him from playing in his upcoming hockey games. And that’s where Hannah comes in, she passed her ethics test with flying colours and so Garrett knows with her help he could be passing too. But Hannah is as stubborn as they get, Garrett is on her case relentlessly about tutoring him, but she won’t concede, what could Hannah want in return? And then Garrett knows exactly the solution, he will help Hannah make her crush notice her in return for her tutoring him. To be honest I knew how things would plan out, but I couldn’t care less, I loved seeing the relationship between Hannah and Garrett unravel, watching them really get to know one another and getting to know the real Garrett underneath, not the playboy type that we had been hearing so much about. Because seriously this Garrett that we got to know was every girl’s dream, he was attentive, sweet, but also vulnerable deep inside, he had so much of his own crap to deal with; but regardless he was always looking out for Hannah. They truly were a beautiful couple; the chemistry between them was just hot!

There were some real difficult issues that both Hannah and Garrett had to deal with, but Kennedy excelled in how Hannah and Garrett were there for one another. Also seriousness aside Kennedy was really able to mix up the humour well within the book, not only was Garrett a funny guy, his flatmates and friends Tucker, Dean and Logan also bought no end of fun to the book, I for one can’t wait to get to know these characters more in the next few books!

For the majority I really enjoyed this book, I was actually contemplating giving it 5 stars if it hadn’t been for that one incident which I really thought could have been unavoided, I felt as though it also dragged on for far too long and could have been resolved so easily if Hannah just talked to Garrett! That and the abrupt ending aside (that was totally the audiobooks fault, it had like 30 minutes left, but I didn’t realise this was because it had an extract of the next book for you to listen to!) The Deal was a book I thoroughly enjoyed. Lorelei Avalon was also a fantastic narrator, she did the voices for Garrett and her friends perfectly, so I’m happy that she will also be narrating the next book!

The Deal was definitely a guilty pleasure read, it had characters which you couldn’t help but fall for, some sexy as hell scenes and love hate relationship which was done spectacularly. I’m actually already considering buying this pretty set of paperbacks for future re-reads.