This book was just… not it. Cooper and Mac are both insufferable to read about, and I didn’t care about whether or not they worked out their relationship problems or not. Cooper is toxic, Mac is annoying, and none of the characters are enjoyable. Not worth your time.

My first Elle Kennedy will most definitely not be my last.

I was hooked from the first chapter. The rich college kids in a beach town filled with locals that are annoyed by their presence - is a plot line that I didn’t even know I needed in my life.

Could I tell exactly how this book would play out? Yes - but I didn’t care one bit.

Gimme a bad boy to swoon over any day (seriously though - what is it about a bad boy that is so appealing!?)

I love a book about a small town with a group of friends that grew up together. I love the group dynamics that come with those friendships and this one was written perfectly. I’m so glad this is the first book of a series because I cannot wait to read more about this crew!

Cooper and Mac had everything - witty banter, different lifestyles, their own stuff to work through and MAJOR chemistry.

I could totally see this being a movie - a perfect rom com!

I really enjoyed this book. The main character Mackenzie was young and in college, which didn’t ring true, she was already a millionaire in her own right from a website and acted older.
Mac went to college knowing her long term boyfriend, Palmer, was there, they had a long term relationship in mind. Unfortunately, Palmer wasn’t faithful at all, and got into a scuffle with a local named Cooper.

Cooper and his twin brother bet that they could get back at Palmer by taking his girlfriend. He meets Mac and they start dating, and he finds himself developing real feelings for her, especially after she breaks up with Palmer and moves in with him.

They discover that they have a lot in common despite their completely different backgrounds. Mac was raised with a lot of money, and a trust fund, but she was expected to date someone similar. Cooper is a townie who’s mom took off and money was tight. However, they’re both competitive and have an incredible work ethic, and they care deeply for their friends. The book gets really interesting after Mac discovers how their relationship started, and as the try to resolve to all their issues.

This ended up being a nice romance that I enjoyed, 4 stars.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

In Avalon Bay, there's a distinct difference between the townies and the clones. The clones are the college students at Garnet who flaunt their family's wealth and walk about town with a sense of entitlement. When Cooper Hartley gets fired from his bartender job because of an altercation with a clone, he and his friends devise a plan--for Cooper to hook the clone's girlfriend. But Cooper didn't expect for Mackenzie Cabot to be likable. She's sweet, a good girl, but also stubborn. She already built her own wealth with her websites and apps. When she stands up to her clone boyfriend and her parents, she not only cuts them off but drops out of school where she never wanted to be in the first place. He's full of charisma and charm, but also hard-working and goal-oriented. They are complete opposites yet they get along well.

I struggled with liking some of the characters in this story. I don't expect to like every single one, but a few of them were completely unlikable. It made me question how Cooper could be friends with them. They were as superficial as the clones they hated for the same reason. I could foresee that one of those townies would reveal the secret that could break Cooper and Mac apart for good.

3.5 stars!

Even though I didn't fall in love with all the characters that made this story, I did fall for Cooper and Mac as they floundered in their relationship and finally found their footing together.

I received an advance copy of this book at my request and voluntarily left this review.

Title: Good Girl Complex
Author: Elle Kennedy
Genre: Romance
Rating: 3.2 out of 5

Mackenzie "Mac" Cabot is a people pleaser. Her demanding parents. Her prep school friends. Her long-time boyfriend. It's exhausting, really, always following the rules. Unlike most twenty-year-olds, all she really wants to do is focus on growing her internet business, but first she must get a college degree at her parents' insistence. That means moving to the beachside town of Avalon Bay, a community made up of locals and the wealthy students of Garnet College.

Mac's had plenty of practice suppressing her wilder impulses, but when she meets local bad boy Cooper Hartley, that ability is suddenly tested. Cooper is rough around the edges. Raw. Candid. A threat to her ordered existence. Their friendship soon becomes the realest thing in her life.

Despite his disdain for the trust-fund kids he sees coming and going from his town, Cooper soon realizes Mac isn't just another rich clone and falls for her. Hard. But as Mac finally starts feeling accepted by Cooper and his friends, the secret he's been keeping from her threatens the only place she's ever felt at home.

If you’re looking for something unique and unpredictable, this is the wrong choice. All of it was predictable. The writing was solid, but there weren’t any surprises, and the “townie” characters were pretty much all horrible and selfish people who just wanted to get drunk or high and complain about the wealthy kids, or, as they deprecatingly call them, “clones.” I liked Mac, but there weren’t any surprised with her, either.

Elle Kennedy is a bestselling author. Good Girl Complex is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

(Blog link live 2/18.)

What I liked:
* the dog Daisy 🐶
* Evan, the MC’s twin brother👯‍♂️
* The setting-really hoping this is a series because the small beach town was charming 🏝
* The idea of the storyline was a good one.📖

What I didn’t like:
* Mac-the main character. So annoying.
* The character’s backstory: she created an app that made millions so now she’s the CEO of a business that has a team of people working for her-a fact she doesn’t shut up about. And while I love that she’s an entrepreneur, it doesn’t make sense that she has all this money on her own, yet she’s still forced to go to college by her parents?
* There’s no way her boyfriend could have been cheating on her as much as the book said without her having a clue. She was annoying, but not stupid. And even if she truly didn’t know he was cheating, he wasn’t even charming or nice. Why was she with him??
* She randomly buys a hotel to redo because she’s bored at her self made online business since she now has a team working for her🙄, yet at the beginning of the book she was so frustrated that her parents were making her attend college when she was soooo busy with her company.
* She’s 20. None of this makes sense for a 20 year old. Yes, I know 20 year olds can become millionaires by starting online businesses, but there’s so much in this book that couldn’t have happened at 20. If the character was 25 or 26, it would have been so much more believable.
* She leaves the dorms and moves in with her new boyfriend because she has no where else to go. Ummm, you are a self made millionaire-a fact you never lets us forget-yet you *have* to live with your BF. YOU JUST BOUGHT A HOTEL! 🤦🏼‍♀️
* I’ll stop now but suffice to say, I had many frustrating thoughts while reading this one.

**I will say-even though this one frustrated me to no end, I am still looking forward to book 2!

I like the main characters for different reasons. They were good people at heart and trying to find their own way outside the path their parents forged for them.

Mackenzie is a 18 year old college student with 7 figures in her “hobby account” which isn’t even the trust fund or money her parents provide her. So when she whines about not having agency, I think you have your own millions and you are technically an adult. Seems like Mac has way more options than her counterpart Cooper who is simmering with anger and resent against wealthy people and their privilege.
I get Coop’s anger but the course of action he took to get revenge against an entitled trust fund baby who pissed him off and got him fired from work was mean and despicable.

With that said, Coop and Mac were trying to maneuver out from the life their parents choices forced them into. I like how they made each other think and challenged each other. They are not afraid of hard work and they learned to how to be vulnerable with each other. They were good together.

I just have to admit that I was low-key jealous of Mac and her bank account. I am glad she made Coop work for a second chance. What he did was reprehensible but it was forgivable. This was a really good book.

Kennedy takes the townie and rich girl trope and gives it fresh life. Great characters with lots of depth and chemistry.

I enjoyed this book, the plot was fun and the characters were likeable. There were a few things that rubbed me the wrong way but I could get passed it. I ended up finishing it on audio and the narration was great. The plot was predictable but overall it was still a good read.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a free advanced copy of this ebook and audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

✨Good Girl Complex by Elle Kennedy✨

Coming February 1st, this is the first in a new series from Elle Kennedy. Mackenzie is from an affluent family, going to a university full of other rich kids, including her sleazy boyfriend. However, she doesn’t want to be there, she just wants to work on her website empire.

One the other hand we have Cooper, a bad boy from the tourist town where Mac’s university is. The townies and college kids are locked in a class war. The rich kids look down on the townies and the townies believe the rich kids are clones of each other, no individuality only generations of wealth and privilege.
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Rating: ⭐️⭐️.5
This book just did not really work for me. I haven’t read a new adult/college romance in a very long time, and this my first Elle Kennedy, so it may be that I did not know what I was getting into. However, I felt that there was so much going on. The set up of their relationship, her boyfriend, her relationship with her parents, her professional goals, his family issues, etc.

With all that plot, it is hard to tell if the characters have a strong enough relationship to stand on its own. They did have good banter and chemistry, but not enough that I could forgive the book its flaws.

I think if you know what you are getting into with Elle Kennedy and the NA genre you may like this book more than me because the characters are easy to root for. Let me know what you think when this book comes out!
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Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my eARC.

I am an Elle Kennedy fan! She is a great writer. This book did not hit it out of the park like the rest of the novels I have ready from her. I did not like the emotional cheating. I did enjoy the characters and all the character growth. I do see others really liking this book. However it was not the one for me.

The Good Girl Complex tells the story about Mac and Cooper. Through a bad encounter with Mac's boyfriend, Cooper devised a plan to humiliate both Mac and her boyfriend. The plan was to break them up and not catch any feelings. Mac is not your typical rich kid. She's a self made millionaire and wants to build a life that is her own. Through their journey of love, both find who they are and what they want to be.

I had some issues with this book. I did not care for the cheating aspect and would have rather that it didn't happen. It felt like I was reading After by Anna Todd with a mix of the show Outer Banks. It was easy to guess what would happen. 90 percent of what I thought would have happened, did in fact happen. It was a cute story but I would have liked to see what happens to Mac and Cooper in an epilogue. Other than that, it was an enjoyable and fun read!

Good Girl Complex was everything I hoped it would be and more. I read this in one day and was enthralled the entire time. Elle Kennedy has a magical mind and I am here for it. Grab GGC as soon as you can! Thanks Elle for writing a heroine that was so easy to root for.

Elle Kennedy has a way of writing realistic college romance. The drama, the blurred lines, the flawed characters, and the questionable choices. There are quite a few things in this story that could be considered red flags, cringey behavior, or unlikable character traits, but to me it’s all true to life. In college you’re figuring yourself out, making mistakes, and learning about life, so I really enjoyed this pragmatic perspective on young love in a college town. I got major Outer Banks (Pogues versus Kooks) vibes with a TVMA rating.

If I annotated every passage that made me laugh, blush, or say “well that’s relatable”, every other paragraph would be marked. I adore Kennedy’s writing and banter.

Overall, I loved this and thought it was super fun and sexy. I was captivated by the very first line, “I’m up to my eyeballs in Jägerbombs.”

I can’t wait for the next from Elle!

Mac was kind of annoying & I found the whole thing immature. I just need my romance characters to have a little more depth. I read about 25% and am passing.

This is a classic "bad boy v. good girl" romance, and it does it's trope justice.

Bad boy/townie, Cooper, concocts a plan to seek revenge again the filthy rich "clones" after being trodden upon one-too-many times. Enter Mackenzie - quintessential "good girl" who comes from a life of privilege but won't settle for the cookie-cutter picture her family has outlined for her.

There's some steam, banter and overcoming of society norms in this fun novel. The only 'negative' I have is that it isn't overly unique. Very enjoyable, fast-paced, and engaging throughout. Who doesn't love a tattooed-bad boy?!

I enjoyed this story. The MCs are well developed and realistic, the plot flows very smoothly, and the ending is pretty perfect. Elle Kennedy knows how to write emotional stories that tear at your heartstrings, so be prepared❤️

I absolutely loved everything about the Off Campus series, The Briar U series, Him/Us/WAGs series, so I thought I loved everything that Elle Kennedy wrote. Until this one. To be clear, I didn’t by any means hate it, but there was absolutely nothing new to this story. It doesn’t help that I was coming off another 5 star read by a different author, but this rich girl/good girl/high society girl meets poor boy/bad boy/Townie boy has been done, and done better by different authors. This tells the story of Cooper and Mackenzie, whose meeting is not the coincidence Mac thinks it is. Cooper has nothing but revenge on the brain, until he catches feelings. It was nice to see how the relationship evolves from friendship to more. The friend group has a bunch of side stories that lead me to believe this is the start of a new series. Hoping for more 4-star reads from this author.

Elle Kennedy does it again! This is an automatic buy author for me! I am hoping to see more from the Avalon bay crew! 5/5 ⭐️

Welcome to Avalon Bay where summer is year-round, surrounded by character and charm, and engulfed with war between townie and clone. After losing his job for starting a bar fight with 'Richie Rich', Cooper Hartley is set out for vengeance. His revenge: steal the clone's girlfriend, and remind him who's turf he's on.

When Cooper meets Mackenzie Cabot, 'Mac', he is expecting her to be like all the other trust-fund clones, but, she actually has a sense of humor? Chemistry sparks when they first "accidentally" meet, and these characters are unblamably drawn to each other, except for one caveat: Mac can never learn of Cooper's initial intentions.

While riding the rollercoaster that was this book, I was rooting for the characters while dreading the inevitable, waiting for the shoe to drop. Cooper and Mac simultaneously provided commentary about the difference between lying and protecting someone from the truth, hiding from challenge with comfort, and epic steamy beach scenes.

The writing is organically entertaining, providing equal romance and dutiful heartbreak that was swiftly resolved. Thank you St. Martin's Press for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. This new release is perfect for the impending Valentine's Day holiday.