The Deal by Elle Kennedy (Book 1 of the Off-Campus Series)

 This book is a sports romance novel. 

Other genres: Romance, New Adult, Contemporary Romance, Hockey, Fake Dating, Friends to Lovers (though probably more like Enemy to Lovers). 

Trigger Warning: This novel discusses and deals with Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault (SA) Trauma, and reliving SA events. This blog will also touch on SA trauma and experiences. This review will also have foul language. 

One Unexpected Kiss Leads to the Wildest Sex of Both Their Lives 

Hannah Wells has baggage. She is smart and confident in most areas of her life, she is doing well in her courses, and she is perfecting her performance for the upcoming concert. But her baggage makes her less confident in the area of sex and seduction. After the ordeal she has been through, Hannah doesn't drink, doesn't like partying and rarely finds a man worth dealing with. Until she laid eyes on Justin. 

Justin, a football jock, was a recent transfer to their University. And the moment she laid eyes on him, Hannah was smitten. Due to her sexual assault, she doesn't typically crush on men, let alone get turned on by them. But Justin changed all that. Now all she has to do is get him to notice her.

Garrett Graham has baggage of his own. His father was a professional hockey player, and he has been trying to live up to his expectations his whole life. The plan is and has always been to play hockey after graduation. But with his GPA plummeting, all his hard work is about to go down the drain. Unless he can convince the smartest girl in his class to tutor him.

Hannah Wells, or "Wellsy" as he calls her, is not thrilled to be tutoring him. In fact, she downright refuses, over and over. . . it isn't until Garrett has a proposition for her that she can't refuse. Fake Date? Will that really work? If Hannah tutors him, Garrett will pretend to date her to try to make Justin jealous. But as things progress, Garrett realises that he may be the jealous one every time he thinks of Hannah with someone else. 

The Review

I'll be honest, I usually listen to new books at regular speed. Books I have already read, I "re-read" at 1.5x speed. But I got so fed up with this book that I switched to 1.3x speed around chapter 17. This book is SLOW. Ironically, just as I sped it up, it started to pick up a little bit. 

If you're coming here from Heated Rivalry, you're going to be disappointed. I think that "Hockey Romance" is a loose tag for this book. It doesn't really matter that Garrett is the captain of the Hockey team. The only role that it plays in the plot is a reason why Garrett needs Hannah's help. 

Not for the first time, I wonder if I am simply too old for "New Adult". It has the vibe of 90s movies where the enemies-to-lovers trope was huge! But unfortunately for me, I felt it fell short of being one of those classics. The book did get better as it went on, thankfully. 

SPOILER ALERT

I wasn't through the first chapter, and already I hated Hannah Wells. She just came off cold, and like a bitch. It was obvious she was bitter and jaded, and it really came across like she was mad at the world. One of the first things mentioned about Hannah is that she was raped. But it is just thrown out there, and then the chapter moves along without any real comment about it beyond that. And yet, it is always brought up when it is convenient for the storyline. We learn that Hannah hates parties, she doesn't trust people, and she won't drink anything anyone hands her, even her friends. And she doesn't drink because she was raped. And that is why Justin will never notice her. But this isn't explained any further. I think it would help the story and the Hannah character if we heard a little about why. Even something as simple as, "Last time I was at a party. . . ." or "That's how he got the upper hand, he handed me a drink, and I hadn't noticed. . ." Anything that alludes to why this is such a big deal. While you can assume that's what happened, it would be nice to know more. 

And this happens often in the novel. Hannah has 9-1-1 dialled until she gets home, just in case, but she gets in the car with Garrett. Hannah even says she spent a lot of time in therapy to get over her trauma, but she still has these habits that she insists will probably never go away. She also goes to Garrett's house, a frat house basically, instead of insisting they meet somewhere in public. Which probably isn't realistic for a survivor of sexual assault and a guy she barely knows. 

I think this may be why I don't like Hannah; I don't think it's the character per se, but it's the lack of explanation as to why she is like this. And it feels forced for the storyline. Even when she talks about Thanksgiving with her parents, it's just a few "shocking" statements and no details about what happened. It also feels like she is judgmental when it comes to men because of her experiences, but again, there is no explanation. If inner dialogue were to say that Garrett reminds Hannah in any way of her abuser and that's why she has a low opinion of him (or athletes in general - which wouldn't work anyway because Justin is an athlete), then maybe it would sit better. But again, she just comes off as judgmental. 

By today's standards, I can understand why some feel like Garrett is an egotistical jerk. But I think this is by design because of the parallels to 90s movies with the same enemy-to-lover trope (think A Walk to Remember, The Duff, and She's All That). But I think if you look beyond how annoying he is when it comes to begging her to tutor him, you can see the scared little boy who just wants to make his dad proud. 

I listened to this book on Audible. 

On Audible, this book is narrated by Lorelei Avalon (as Hannah) and Christian Fox (as Garrett). I wonder if this is another reason why I don't like Hannah. Lorelei's voice is so deadpan. She sounds like a bored teenager forced to read her diary or complaining to a friend. I am not sure if that is just Lorelei's voice in general or style in general, or if that is her interpretation of the character. Either way, I think that reading the book myself may have helped my opinion of Hannah, though probably not by much. 

Christian Fox is better. But something about his voice doesn't click with me. It's not bad. But it doesn't scream University Jock. He has a lot of steamy titles under his belt, which may play a part in it. But he doesn't seem to really embody Garrett. 

Also, as a side note, I hated that to start each chapter, they said the character's name. "Chapter 8 - Hannah", I really don't think that was necessary. 

Rating and Recommendation

I started by giving this book only two and a half stars. But it did get better as the book went along. So I changed my rating at the last minute. 

This book is a "New Adult" book, which means its target audience is college-aged kids (which makes sense since that's what it is about. Maybe I am a little too old for it. But I just couldn't enjoy it. As I said previously, I think it is the Hannah character that threw me off. And her lack of depth. I felt like the author had a real chance at showing what challenges someone who has been sexually assaulted can face as they try to process their trauma and learn to cope with it. But it felt like she dropped the ball at every turn. 

If you like hockey romances and enemy-to-lovers, you may like this book. I like those things, but couldn't get past the character holes. Maybe I am just too old-fashioned. 

I paid for Audible so I could listen to this book. When I tell you I regret it, I say that with seething rage. I wanted to get this review in close to the show's Amazon Prime premiere. So I paid for Audible and got this book with the free credit. At least I didn't actually spend money on it. It would have been my first DNF, but I refused to give up on it because of the price I paid for Audible. 

Conclusion

Even though the trailer for the TV show is just a few seconds long, it already seems better than the book. I recommend watching the TV series. If you enjoy it, you may want to try reading the book. (If you like the series, you may be more determined to finish the book.) If you didn't finish the book or didn't like the book, I would recommend giving the TV show a try. Already, the Hannah character seems different, more relatable. Maybe I just prefer drunk Hannah instead of regular Hannah. 

I am not sure "Hot" is the word for it, really. There is sex in the book. And it is described, but it isn't what I would say "hot". Again, it is a reminder that this book is aimed at "New Adults". So that may play into it a little, also. But it is definitely not PG-13 by any means. 

Sexual Assault (Trigger Warning)

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Canadian women experience sexual assault in some form annually. Though we will never truly know this exact number because of severe underreporting, it is safe to say that Canada has a sexual assault problem. According to an infographic on the Government of Canada's website, only 6% of sexual assaults are reported to police. Of that six percent only about 1 in 19 cases lead to an accused person being sentenced to custody. It is also believed that of that six per cent of sexual assaults, 89% are women or girls, and 97% of the accused are men or boys. 

According to another infographic, "Sexual assault" is any unwanted sexual activity (e.g. sexual touching, kissing someone without consent, rape). It also goes on to say that 1 in 3 women experienced unwanted sexual behaviour in public, which includes unwanted sexual attention or unwanted physical contact. 

I want to be completely honest, I think most of us (ladies) have experienced some kind of sexual assault, violence, abuse, harassment, etc. And I think, depending on when and how you were raised, a lot of us learned to shrug it off. "Oh, Uncle John grabbed my ass? It's okay, he's just drunk." But it's not okay. Those are lies we were told or tell ourselves to minimise what has happened to us. 

I've done it myself. Someone grabbed my ass at a party, and I just let it go because he was drunk and everyone was having a good time. And in reality, he probably didn't mean anything by it. But it was still inappropriate. I think part of the problem with sexual assault is that everyone thinks of rape. Sexual assault doesn't always mean rape. Sexual assault doesn't always mean legal issues. That story, for example, I didn't want the guy to go to jail. He had never done it before, never did it since, and he was drunk. Was it an accident? Maybe. But it was still sexual assault. And even though I didn't want anything to come of it, I still had to recognise it and validate myself and the situation. It's really a mindset we need to break. 

A sexual assault victim never HAS to do anything. You never HAVE to report, you never HAVE to tell someone. But you do need to validate yourself. Oftentimes, that comes with talking to a therapist, sharing with a friend or family member, or calling the police. Whatever you choose, it is up to you. And it is NEVER too late. 

You can find The Deal in its respective mediums below: 

You can find Off Campus (2026, directed by Silver Tree, Samantha Bailey, Erica Dunton, and Dawn Wilkinson), Season 1, on Amazon Prime.  You can watch the trailer below via Amazon Prime's YouTube Channel. 

* Book cover image retrieved from GoodReads. All rights belong to the author and/or publisher. 
* All the "stickers" in this blog were provided by Bookish (presented by NetGalley). 
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