Good Girl Complex was a great romance. I enjoyed the strong female lead who had her own business and followed her own path. She didn’t need her father or her boyfriend to pay her way. The characters weee well developed and the plot included several twists.

Another great release from the one and only, Elle Kennedy. I loved the dynamic between Mac and Cooper -- these two were so fun to read about and their romance had me swooning. I simply couldn't put it down.

I will go in to this saying this is my first Elle Kennedy book so I was unfamiliar with her writing style and over all plot she puts into her stories but having been on BookTok for a few months now and have seen her books raved on constantly by users I was disappointed with Good Girl Complex. With that being said, this book felt so predicable and at times cringe-worthy. If you're a fan of the book/movie series After and/or the tv series The Outer Banks I'm sure you will love this book. It's the classic rich girl/poor guy seeking revenge plot that at times it felt like I was reading After all over again. Mackenzie's character goes through a lot of growth but it felt at times cheesy and predictable in the same sense that Cooper of course ends up falling for the girl he was supposed to use as revenge to get back at the head 'clone' / Mackenzie's boyfriend. The ending felt rushed and it took over 90% of the book for the 'other shoe to drop' and when it does it's not the climatic whirlwind you're expecting it be.

I wanted to love this book after hearing all the great things about Elle Kennedy but I think that I might just not be her target audience, regardless I will recommend the book to anyone looking for a cute new adult romance.

This is the kind of romance book I have been looking for to start off 2022. Mac is a 20 year old young woman that grew up with a lot of money. She started a tech company right out of high school & made money of her own. She has been dating the same guy for years that fits the mold that she grew up around...rich, entitled, & what her parents expect her to marry. Cooper is from the "wrong side of the tracks" so to speak & is a townie. Cooper ends up being fired because he hits Mac's boyfriend since he was putting the moves on his (Cooper's) friend. He's mad & wants revenge. He decides to set his sights on Mac & make her break up with Preston then he can spectacularly dump her & all will be right with their worlds. Little did he expect that he would like Mac & everything she is. Highly recommend reading this book for some very well crafted characters & a great love story.

Thanks to NetGalley & the publisher for advanced copy in exchange for my honest review

I'm really happy that I got to read an arc of this beautifully written rom-com.it was everything that I expected from Elle Kennedy ,romantic sweet steamy.its about coop who lives in a town where is full of rich college kids which he hates them and Mackenzie who is a rich student with good girl complex, over some accidents coop decides to seduce Mac because he thinks Mac is typical clone girl.honestly the characters were not people who I assumed them to be they were so relatable and you totally get their motives behind their actions. I love their chemistry so much .
thank you to the publisher, and the author for letting me read an ARC of this amazing
story through NetGalley.
rating:5/5
spice:2

This is a classic two people from the opposite side of the tracks who ultimately belong together despite their differences. I know Elle Kennedy has a huge following and this is a new probably series from her but I have not read any of her previous books. The good girl complex follows Mac and Coop, the main characters in the story and revolves around the pull between these two. They both definitely fit into the classical troops of good/Rich girl Who is stuck in circumstances she doesn’t want to be in and bad/poor boy With a heart of gold. Normally I speed through a romance like this but it initially did not pull me in and ultimately took me a while to finish. Technically this falls under the new adult category but it’s still felt a little YA.

Thank you to #NetGalley For the ARC in exchange for an honest review

Excellent novel! At first I was not so sure if I would like this one but I ended up loving it! The writing is excellent and the characters really showed off in this novel. Great read!

🏖SYNOPSIS: Mackenzie Cabot is born into wealth and to a town where it’s the rich v. the wealthy. She meets bad boy Cooper Hartley who tests everything she’s ever known.

🏖REVIEW: Now this was a romance I could get behind. This one really took me back. Mackenzie, or “Mac,” is in college, and dealing with that first love, tumultuous relationship chaos, and man - the nostalgia just felt good. The author did a wonderful job of describing what all relationships during that time are like, in their immaturity, their passion, their chaos, and I was here for it.

I liked the war between the “clones” (the rich) and the “townies” (the poor) and I thought it showed just what a traitor Mac was going to the other side. The whole bet had me with anxiety the entire time. I liked her finding her independence and her voice through the novel.

Was their steam? Don’t all college kids like to bang?! Yes, there was 🔥🔥🔥

My best advice going into this is to just have fun with it. Was it too long? Yes. There were some things I felt didn’t need to be included, but overall I had a great time escaping into this romance, and that’s all I really needed.

🏖VERDICT: 4 STARS ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🎵Song Rec: needed an appropriate throwback too. “Replay” - Iyaz

https://www.instagram.com/p/CYWbDF0LJvN/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

This comes out 2/1! Thanks to @stmartinspress and @netgalley for a copy!

I did enjoy reading this, and I'm likely to order it for my library, but the main characters were just in that age range (early 20s) that I just can't seem to vibe with. I love YA and I love contemporary romance, so I always think that new adult is going to be my jam, and I also work at a university, so I work with college students regularly. But I guess reading about college students (or students in that age range) just doesn't work for me. Still, I liked the main female character, Mac, who is not your typical rich girl at a private school college freshman. For one thing, she took some time off before coming to college, and for another, though she comes from money, she's actually a self-made millionaire because of a wildly successful website and app she created, #boyfriendfails. The characters are interesting and this follows a pretty common romance novel progression, but there were some unexpected twists that kept me interested. Content warning for toxic parent-child relationships.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press/St. Martin’s Griffin, and Elle Kennedy for the opportunity to honestly review an e-arc of Good Girl Complex.

Mackenzie “Mac” Cabot is a Good Girl. She’s a People Pleaser, putting the needs and wants of her parents and boyfriend before her own. She wants to focus on her booming internet business, but holds off in order to get a degree at her parents’ insistence. Mac heads to Avalon Bay, a community made up of the locals and the rich university students.

Cooper Hartley is one half of Avalon Bay’s bad boy twins. He is rough around the edges and does not like the clones of the college taking over his town every semester. When Mac and Cooper meet, sparks fly but patience and acceptance are also tested. The pair become unlikely friends and Mac finally starts to feel like she has a place in the world. That is, until a secret that Cooper has been keeping threatens everything that they built.

I’m usually not a big fan of the “dating someone for a bet” trope, but I think because Cooper quickly falls for Mac and tells everyone who knew about the bet that it was off and he knows he shouldn’t have done it in the first place, I didn’t mind it quite as much in this book.

My main issue with the book that knocked it down a star was that Mac seemed very Mary Sue-ish. She apparently is a wiz at everything with little explanation of how she came by those skills. Before she had even graduated high school, she built her own major website/app that made her millions, then suddenly her passion and expertise was renovating historic hotels. I would have liked that aspect to be expanded on a little more.

Despite that, I still flew through the book. I was very invested in Mac and Cooper’s relationship. I liked the growth of the two main characters as their relationship progressed. They helped each other overcome issues and pushed each other towards their dreams. If there are more books set in Avalon Bay, I will definitely be picking them up.

I adore Elle Kennedy! Her stories always grab my attention and 'Good Girel Complex' was no different. This book is good girl/rich bad boy vibes but I will say it did remind me of "After" by Anna Todd but WAY BETTER in my humble opinion.

This wasn't my favorite Elle Kennedy book, but it is one I will definitely recommend to friends and one ill probably pick up to read again

I really loved these characters - they were raw, damaged, redeemable. I wish there was some more detail about Evan and what he was going through, but overall, the characters really grab you. The opening scene immediately gets you in the gut - everyone knows drunk hands-y jerks at bars - and as the reader you immediately get the hero in Cooper. I loved that he had a set of long-time tight friends which were women. Usually these stories have the woman working at a small, local business, but turning around the gender roles and having Cooper trying to get his dream career off the floor while she's already a successful business owner was fun to read.

Going into this book, I had no idea what to expect of the characters and their lives. Leaving this book, I now have an attachment to them and wish I could be apart of their lives longer. This book pulled me out of a month long reading slump and I could not be more in love with a book. The characters? Amazing. Love the bad boy with a big, soft heart. Also, love an independent female lead who knows what she wants. All I want to do is reread the book now!

Good Girl Complex is the first book in the Avalon Bay series by Elle Kennedy. I felt like this book was like if After by Anna Todd meets The Outer Banks. It was good, not great, but good and felt a bit basic. For me, this was a solid 3.5 but I’ll round up to a 4 bc smoking hot twins and cute dogs.

In the book we meet Cooper Hartley and Mackenzie Cabot. This is a rich girl meets “townie” bad boy college romance. Mac is an entrepreneur who deferred her first year of college to work on her business and upon joining her boyfriend of four years in college she feels like she doesn’t belong there and is missing something. Cooper is the town bad boy out looking for revenge against the rich “clone” who got him fired from his summer bartending gig.

Honestly, this book was a bit of a let-down. I loved the Off Campus series by Elle Kennedy. She made those characters real and memorable. The characters in Good Girl Complex, though fun and likeable, didn’t quite reach me. This felt like a standard good girl meets bad boy romance. Now, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love a different worlds kind of meet cute and I will certainly continue reading the series as published but it was just good.

I will say this… Cooper Hartley is a babe and I wouldn’t mind running into him on the boardwalk at all. Elle Kennedy absolutely knows how to give us some good book boyfriends and I definitely want to get an Even book.

this book is gonna give me a major book hangover i just know it.

to be honest i requested this book because of the author. i read elle kennedy's books previously (off-campus and briar u series) and i adored them so requesting an arc for her newest book was a no-brainer for me.

mac + cooper are the new loves of my life (especially cooper hartley where can i get one?). they reminded me of the pogue/kooks from the netflix show outer banks which is a dynamic i enjoy consuming. this book was so much fun and i thoroughly enjoyed myself from start to finish.

there was so much of this book that i loved! the vast difference between mac and cooper yet they find similarities in the most mundane and heartbreaking things were so beautiful to watch and i ADORED mac's character development.

is it too much to ask for a sequel? maybe evan finds love in avalon bay as well...

I wish I can give Good Girl Complex more than five stars because I absolutely loved it. I read the whole book in one sitting. It was addicting and I couldn’t put it down. Elle Kennedy is an amazing story tellers and I will literally read anything she publishes. I can’t wait to have a physical copy. I loved the romance, the steamy scenes but especially the relationship between Cooper and Mac. Rich girl finds a bad boy is absolutely one of my favorite types to read. Thank you so much Netgalley for giving the opportunity to have an early copy.

This is not a bad book.. It was just not for me. I thought it was too typical and a little boring. I felt like I have read this book before, but I haven't. Might be perfect for some readers, just not for me.

4.5/5⭐️

I am so grateful that I got an ARC for this book because it was truly amazing.

This book follows a stubborn, funny & rich girl Mackenzie Cabot and our smexy, chill townie Cooper Hartley. Their worlds collide, what could possibly happen? Well let me tell you… THE GREATEST FRIGGIN SUMMER ROMANCE!!

AGHH I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW MUCH I ENJOYED THIS BOOK.

I think part of why I loved it so much was because I could relate to some stuff the characters went through and therefore got more attached. I loved all of the friendships in this book and how Mackenzie learned to adapt to Coopers life.

I kind of hated Evan, Coopers twin, at first but then he warmed up and I love him.

To sum it all up this book was AMAZING AND I LOVED IT. GO READ IT PLEASE!!

Oh wait nvm it comes out 1st February 😭

Elle Kennedy has been an author on my TBR for the longest time and Good Girl Complex was the first book of her’s I read. Unfortunately this book wasn’t for me, but it won’t stop me from trying her other books. I found the book to be too slow for my tastes and had a hard time getting into this story.

***2 Stars***

*Le Sigh*

It’s been a minute since I read anything by the author, but had enjoyed what I read and decided to give this one a go. Unfortunately, it didn’t go the way I was hoping.

I will admit that I was intrigued by the first chapter, but then the second chapter hit and things kinda went downhill when I realized just what the secret was and how it was probably going to play out.

Unfortunately, again, I was right and while I did push through with the story, because I needed to see how it all played, I just feel meh about the book. In general I liked Cooper and Mackenzie, and did like see them grow throughout the story, but they just didn’t fully grab me and their chemistry was…tepid for me.

And then there was the “secret”...yeah. Not in my wheelhouse at the moment. I mean, I don’t have many tropes I dislike, but I just wasn’t feeling it right now.

I wish I liked this book more. I really do because there were some good moments, but it falls in the “it’s not you, it’s me” shelf. But if you do take a chance on it, I hope you love it.


~ Copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley & voluntarily reviewed ~