3.5/5

This is my problem with these books: there so untruthful which leads to it just being predictable... It wasn't just that we ALL saw this coming a mile away but it was just cheap. These cheap stories and premises are *reallyyyy* not it.

If it weren't for the really good audiobook narration this definitely would've been 2-3 stars.

This is a story where the rich, college girl falls in love with the local bad boy. The setting is a beach town and it gave me major Outer Banks (the tv show) vibes.

It was very predictable but the story was sweet. I loved both characters, Mac and Cooper. I especially enjoyed that Mac “the rich girl” wasn’t your stereotypical wealthy girl – her parents were rich but she made her own millions by staring an app when she was in high school. She was independent and had a strong work ethic. Cooper was the sexy bad boy that dropped his guard down for Mac. I felt that their relationship was real and genuine and they brought the best out of each other. They had the best chemistry. I really enjoyed this one!

A huge thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I really liked this book! After reading many of Elle Kennedy's other books I went into the book expecting a good read and I wasn't let down at all. The characters intrigued me and the romance was cute, loved all the twists and turns that it took me on. Excited for more to come!

3.5/5 stars. So, I liked this book. I didn't love it in the way I had hoped, but I liked it. While I love Elle's writing style and can still very much feel that Briar U/Off Campus spirit in the writing, I didn't connect as much to the characters as I wanted to. Overall, the plot was okay, but I didn't like a lot of the back and forth and back and forth between the love interests. I definitely loved the setting and some of the stuff, standard Elle Kennedy things like broken homes and how the characters are very strong people figuring out life, but I just don't think these characters were for me specifically. At least in regards to the main characters. The ending didn't pack the emotional punch I was looking for. That should not discourage anyone, however. I think that this story is good for a great many people it just didn't work for me personally.

All of that being said, I will be reading the next one because I did still enjoy the writing and I liked a few of the other characters so I'm excited to see where the story goes for those people.

I was super excited to read this book, but it was such a disappointment. The writing was great, and I really didn't like the characters. It was a very basic and boring book, I expected more to be honest.

I was so excited to get my hands on this book. I’m a huge fan of Elle Kennedy’s and I was excited to see what this book would bring to us.
This book follows good girl Mackenzie “Mac” Cabot. She is used to doing everything the right way, trying hard not to stray too far from the lines. After taking some time off, she is trying to finish her college degree, though that’s not what she wants.

Cooper Hartley is the town bad boy. He’s charming, to the point, and handsome. And he hates the tourist that flood the area. Especially when one local guy costs him something. Now he wants a little bit a revenge, but that will also cost him something in the long run…


This book has a little bit of everything–betrayal, angst, jealousy, second-chances. I fell in love with it.

I feel like I was able to connect a lot with the characters, which I find common with Elle’s books. She just writes them in a way that has you nodding and thinking “that’s actually something that I would say or do”.

This book was just perfection in my opinion. The characters still had that “college” feel to them, but also had moments of maturity so it didn’t completely drive you insane when they did something dumb.

Super excited for everyone to read this book!

I loved Good Girl Complex by Elle Kennedy! I am a bit late with my review and it has already been let out into the world, but I found the setting to be utterly charming and I am always, always a fan of two individuals from opposite sides of the tracks colliding. I have been on both sides of the tracks and it's so interesting to see this dynamic reflected in fiction. There is SPICE and HEAT in this one which I did not expect, but appreciated as it complemented the chemistry between our two leads very well. Many thanks to St. Martin's Press for providing me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest opinions on the book!!

I’ve heard plenty of good things about Elle Kennedy books, so I’m sad to report that I have DNF’d at 35%.

There’s a difference between young characters and juvenile characters and, in my opinion, Good Girl Complex veered heavily into juvenile. The behaviors of the characters were just more than I could handle.

The plot is one we’ve all heard before, but it’s also one that needs to be left in the past. Rich jerk gets the townie fired for defending a woman the jerk was mistreating… townie and his raucous townie friends hatch a revenge plot centered on stealing his rich girlfriend because all rich girls are easy marks and want to “slum it” at least once… but THIS rich girl is different. And that’s as far as I got. It’s not hard to see what’s comes next though. Girl will cheat on her boyfriend despite that going against her moral compass, then she’ll find out the whole thing was just a plot to get back at her rich jerk boyfriend and she’ll hate both guys, but eventually she realize that the townie did her a favor and they live happily ever after.

Sorry, but we’re better than this. And I find I can never get behind a book where cheating is the way our MCs get together. That’s a crap foundation for any relationship.

So, instead of continuing to get frustrated with this book, I made the decision to DNF. It’s clearly not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I will first say that I really enjoy many of Elle Kennedy's books. This one was just ok. I can't say that I disliked it, just that it didn't really grab me the way most of the books of hers I have read do.

Starting with what I didn't like:
- It was a bit predictable. This doesn't always bother me with romance books, as I still enjoy some common tropes, and I don't need every book to be a brand new experience (I just need to enjoy it). However, there were a few points in the story that I felt like had some missed opportunities. I had a few guesses about events that might happen, and it seems like the book went with the easiest (and not always the most interesting) option.

- The main characters were sometimes really frustrating. There were a few things they did that didn't seem to make sense, and I think would have solved a lot of problems for them if they had taken a different approach.

- The antagonists were a little weak. Heidi, while I wouldn't call her a full antagonist, did help to push the story forward in some places, but I feel like she was not as fleshed out as a character and her role was a bit too stereotypical. I did like how her storyline was resolved though, so she was not all bad. Preston and Mackenzie's parents were ok, but I feel like there was more that could have happened with them and didn't.

- The end was very abrupt and didn't feel like it really answered everything.

What I did like:
- I loved some of the characters relationships with each other. I really liked the Evan/Mackenzie dynamic, as well as Alana and Steph with Mackenzie. I enjoyed Cooper and Evan, but I think there were some big questions there that didn't really get addressed. I loved Daisy and everything she brought to the story. I also really enjoyed Bonnie. I also really like Levi.

- I loved the town. The dynamic of the locals vs. the rich was interesting and added to the story. I feel like I have been to towns with similar vibes to this.

- Mackenzie and Cooper, despite some frustrations that I had with them, were an interesting couple and I enjoyed their story. I felt invested in what happened to them.

Overall, this was a fun read, but not quite up to what I expect from Elle Kennedy. This was a pretty quick read, and was enjoyable in the moment, but it doesn't feel like something that I will remember well after a while. I am intrigued to read more in this series, particularly Evan's story that was hinted at, as I do like the characters and the setting.

I've been a huge fan of Elle Kennedy since I read her Off-Campus series. Her novels tend to have interesting characters and relationship dynamics. However, this one is a bit frustrating for me. The heroine, Mac, just seems to lack some backbone for most of the book. You can't help but want to shake her. Then, she went on to cheat on her boyfriend (granted the boyfriend is also a jerk) with a guy she just met. Things get even more frustrating when the male character Cooper just wouldn't tell the truth. Gah!

I do like reading about Mac's friendship with Cooper's twin brother Evan... but other than that, the book deserves maybe 2.5/3 stars.

I love Elle Kennedy. Her Off-Campus series is still one of my faves to this day and I even enjoyed the spin-off series, Briar U, as well. So I was excited to see her venture outside of the college hockey world into something different. But I feel like I should just say right off the bat that this didn't quite live up to her previous work. It was still very readable and quick to get through (if that's what you're in the mood for), but it just didn't have the same heart, humor, and steamy combo that I've come to expect from her books.


The heroine Mackenzie "Mac" Cabot appears to be your typical rich kid, complete with demanding parents who would love nothing more for her to marry her (terrible) long-time boyfriend. But she's also a savvy businesswoman with a company that's doing incredibly well. She'd rather focus on that instead of going to Garnet College in Avalon Bay like her parents are "making her do." (Side note: Even though I agree college isn't for everyone, I couldn't help but think of all the people who would love to go to the college and can't when she complains about this.) In Avalon Bay, there's a heavy divide between the wealthy college students and the locals. And of course, when Mac meets local "bad boy" Cooper Hartley sparks fly between these two total opposites. While Mac tries to resist him, he has his own reasons for pursuing her which are a mix of genuine attraction and secret intentions. It's the latter that I had a problem with.


Here's the thing, I actually love the whole city girl/local bad boy trope but this time it didn't work for me. I felt like Cooper's intentions don't bode well for him as a love interest from the get-go and Mac is clearly an intelligent woman so her naivete was a little hard to believe. And their relationship went from zero to sixty real fast. There was just a lot going on. The story would've benefitted from streamlining the story, rounding out Mac and Cooper more as individuals, and letting their romance simmer a bit.


Do I recommend? Despite what I wrote, there were aspects I liked and it was quick and very readable. But if you're a long time fan like me, I wouldn't be surprised if you felt similarly so I'd recommend borrowing it from the library first. And if you're trying out Elle Kennedy for the first time, do NOT start here.

I had such high hopes for this one. Elle Kennedy is one of my very favorite authors.
She writes the best banter and creates genuine chemistry between her characters. And she does that here too with Mackenzie and Cooper.

I just couldn’t get past how Cooper was less than truthful. When he had so many chances to come clean.
They built such a strong bond that was cheapened by all the lies.
That caused me to lose interest in the conclusion.
So it was an okay read.

I'm usually a really big fan of Elle Kennedy and so I'm pretty disappointed by how much I didn't especially enjoy this book. I think that for me, besides the twins relationship and some of the friendships, I just kind of found the plot felt repetitive and fell flat. It felt a little bit predictable as well as opposed. To giving us some surprises and I really didn't especially enjoy the clone piece of everything. It just felt a little bit on the nose for me.

I also very much felt that the ending came out of nowhere and didn't really resolve a lot of the details that I was hoping it would. It sort of just felt like all of a sudden the book was over and there were so many questions that I still had. I kind of wished that we had gotten some more answers there. And I just don't especially enjoy the bad boy kind of trope. It's just not usually my favorite.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

This was my first book by Elle Kennedy. I enjoyed it and would definitely read more of her books! However, this one wasn’t my favorite. Some of the plot seemed repetitive. The predictability did not bother me, but the stereotyping of “clones” was never ending. I still enjoyed the romance, the twins relationship, and the steam!

This book was a miss for me. I like Elle's writing but this one didn't work for me. Thank you for letting me read and review her books.

ohhh okay, so I started this and wasn’t feeling it AT ALL. Idky, but the beginning felt too chaotic?? it was weird, but I kept going and started to get into it.

What I liked:
🤍the gangggg, at first I didn’t, but then they all became friends and I’m down for books for everyone. Hell yes. Evan and Daisy?!? bye i love them, best people in this world

🤍how the feeling and tone changed. We went from childish college games, to more real life stuff and it was the best change

🤍when Mac stepped up for herself, get it girl!!!

🤍i liked the romance🤭 the beginning… yeah no, but once they caught feelings?? i liked it, it felt real? like not everything is rainbows and butterflies, i liked that

What I didn’t like:
~ first THE ENDING???!? WHY?!? it was so abrupt😩😩😩😩😩😩

~ Mac hypocritical ass. She did grow and I liked her in the last bit, but how she was basically crucifying every “clone” in her head for cheating, just for her to do the same thing days later was… 🤡🤡🤡

~ I liked Coop, I found him charming, sue me. But he was pretty stupid at times lmao. The fact that he kept lying really bothered me :/ and how he kept bitching about Evan and Mac’s being friends?!? ITS WHAT YOU WANTED STUPID STOP COMPLAINING

~ everything felt unresolved?? Preston and Mac’s hotel… like? give me more?? Everything felt unfinished:(

I have been a fan of Elle Kennedy for many years, so I came into this book with high expectations. Elle blew me away! Max and Cooper were well thought out characters that had electric chemistry and I found myself rooting for them both as individuals and as a couple. I’m usually the kind of reader who stops at any hint of an impending conflict, but I never put this one down because of the faith I had in this couple. The world was charming and it felt like a place true love could form out of the most unusual circumstances. I loved the way the book challenged stereotypes and snap judgments and I cannot wait to see who else we learn to love in Avalon Bay.

I am a huge fan of the girl girl/bad boy trope. This is your opposites attract, rich girl meets boy from the wrong side of the tracks but with a twist. There are multiple story lines that move a little slow at times and it is a little bit too long, yet the characters’ chemistry, their self growth and second chances storylines keep you interested and the book overall enjoyable. This is a little steamy and reminds me of a cross between After/West Side Story/Grease.

I got some really strong CW vibes from this one and I'm saying that in the most positive, I-love-those shows interpretation of that.
There's tons of family drama, friendship drama, relationship drama, and finding-yourself drama to ensure that not a moment goes by that your emotions are not invested in what's going on in the story, but it's all evened out by fun and light moments that help you discover that you really do want Mac and Cooper to realize that they're perfect for each other and that they both have great things to offer the other.
There is a lot going on in the story, not just with the relationship between Cooper and Mac, but in how they each relate to their families and how they start taking the reins for their own lives. It was really great to see how they each became better versions of themselves just by being together and how they managed to define themselves outside of the relationship.
Overall, it's a great beach read that pulled me in and made me care about the characters enough that I really hope this turns into a series and we get to see some of the other characters, especially Cooper's twin Evan, get their own hard-fought HEA.

Very happy thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the engaging read!

Unfortunately this book did not work for me. I didn’t want to root for the characters as a couple and the story felt very choppy and rushed.