Thank you to #NetGalley, St Martin's Griffin, as well as Elle Kennedy for the ARC that I received. I am such a fan of the work that St Martin's Griffin has been putting out lately, and was really excited to see this title from them as I was an Elle Kennedy fan from when she was self-publishing.

With Elle Kennedy no longer being simply self-published, and with the benefit of editors, I really did expect more from this series and this book. Elle's writing is straightforward as she usually is, comparable to her Briar U series, but there was a lot about this book that felt it could have been helped by fewer pages.

The premise of a 'Bad Girl' working hard to amend her reputation falls apart pretty quickly when even the protagonist doesn't seem to understand why she is doing this. Her efforts to change her ways didn't translate well across the page - frankly, there were some weird messages about drinking, partying, and moderation. Additionally, there is the mention of forced groping, which somehow leads Gen (our heroine) to becoming the bad person by outing the person who groped her to their family. In a post #MeToo era this is a confusing and bizarre choice for a plot point.

The characters are as young as impetuous as we have come to know and love, written by Elle Kennedy before (Garrett, anyone?) however, in this book, charm does come out in the same way. Our male lead Evan doesn't feel grounded or real; in fact this whole bunch of characters rarely presents with a winning character trait. Some tough issues were attempted here:

*SPOILERS*
- family relationships
- abandonment
- addiction
- postpartum depression
- cancer
- police overreach

yet, somehow not a single one of them had any real resolution.

I am not giving up on Elle Kennedy yet! I just hope that she takes a moment to think about the settings and storylines she is using for her books because we know she can handle the material(Briar U shows us she can).

For me this was 2.5 stars, but I dropped it down to 2 because of how disjointed and bloated the story felt.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this Arc!

I have got to admit that I had a really hard time with this. I feel like this is very focused on stereotypes. The stereotype of rich, stupid, ignorant and mean College kids at this Southern University. And, the locals calling the college kids "clones" and partying and basically being the only cool kids around. It just feels so judgemental and I really don't enjoy reading that. It's just not something I agree with and seems a bit harsh.

The romance between Evan and Gen is nice, but at the same time I felt like these characters just weren't relatable or very substantial.

With all that being said, I do want to remind anyone that these are simply my opinions and I'll say it... This just is not the book for me. Now, I still think plenty of other people will enjoy this. So, if you're interested in checking this book out then I say go for it and I hope you enjoy!

I absolutely LOVED Good Girl Complex so when I saw this pop up, I knew I had to have it! Once again, Elle did not disappoint! Watching Gen and Evan get their "second chance" was so real and gritty. I loved that they didn't have a fairy tale and it was...fluid. They tried so hard to just move on and be better people and in the end, each other is what made me whole. I loved everything about this book! Elle has always been an auto-buy author for me and this is no exception.

I came into this series one book later and loved the quaint little world Kennedy built. This is a quick yet cute read with a bunch of characters that make you giggle at all their mess. Honestly it reminded me of a reality show, like Southern Charm with all the drama and mess these characters find themselves in. Everyone is dating everyone, people are dating to make others jealous, Southern Charm meets the OC meets Jersey Shore. Kennedy does a great job building out her world and introducing new characters and their tangled lives to keep you wanting more. I gave this 3 stars and thank you NetGalley for my ARC.

I must say the spicy 🌶 sex scenes made this romance tolerable. An uncommon love story with a lot of booze, fights and unnecessary police harassment. Evan and Gen’s relationship is rocky but worth it. Love young always comes with its own set of difficulties but being able to grow together will prove that the love can withstand time. I would give this 3.5/5 stars, it’s cute, a light read and easy to follow. The banter is hilarious and the different kind of love story is refreshing. It is lovers to strangers to lovers trying to deny what they already know. I did not like the ending but that’s because I’ll never be for a woman proposing to a man, screams desperation.

I really, really wanted to love this but I just can’t with how toxic the relationships are. I can feel for Genevieve, her leaving and starting over was the *best* choice for her and right off the bat I felt her dad put her in a wildly uncomfortable spot by pinning the business on her despite the multiple siblings who worked there and could’ve stepped up. Evan, ooof where do I start? I understand his absolutely terrible personality traits due to his upbringing but he shows zero growth. For being a child of an addict and in the process of reconnecting with his mother and knowing that just because someone says they’ve changed, doesn’t mean you trust it, he throws the most extreme tantrums. He takes it as an insult that Gen is having trouble believing the change (because there is none) as a personal attack. In what world is encouraging someone who is trying to be sober to go out with the person they lost all control with to see if they can “just be moderate” ok? The random harassing cop is also pointless and leads to no where except frustration. The “happy” ending is there in the second chance trope but it’s a disappointment for me that Gen slipped back to someone who believed that by her growing up and not being wasted all the time made her “lose her spark”. At least the spice was there so if you can ignore everything else, that’s good at least.

3.5 stars. Good Girl Complex was light and fun and Bad Girl Reputation didn’t disappoint as a sequel. It was fun to see Evan as a main character after experiencing “the twins” in GGC from Cooper’s perspective. This was a super fast read and lighthearted, but still tackled some bigger issues and family dynamics that kept the plot interesting. I believed Gen and Evan’s love story much more than Mac and Cooper’s in the first book, and their “redemption arcs” of trying to become better people was charming with many laugh out loud moments. This book could certainly read as a stand-alone as well if the synopsis calls to you more than GGC.

I absolutely loved everything about this book. Now after reading The Good Girl Complex I have to be honest, I wasn't sure if I was going to be a big fan of Genevieve but I ended up really enjoying her character. Her growth, her determination to make change, and her wanting to try and grow out of her love for Evan was cute but I'm' so glad they realized that they were TOTALLY meant for each other.

This book was better then it's companion in my opinion, I really enjoyed Genevieve and Evan's relationship. They had a lot of history and could have walked away from each other but decided that they were worth fighting for ! This book for me was filled with SOO much less drama then the Good Girl Complex and I didn't mind it. Definitely not a super fast paced read but it was super enjoyable and I'd definitely recommend the duology to any fans of rom coms.

To be honest, I struggled through this one a little bit. Good Girl Complex was underwhelming for me, so I was really hoping Bad Girl Reputation would redeem the series for me. I will admit, it was better than the first, but I still expected so much more. Overall, this isn't a must read, but is a quick, somewhat enjoyable read.

I really enjoyed this one. I like the way that grief of a parent was handled. I don't know if this will be a super memorable book for me, but I did enjoy reading it!

*I received a free ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

Elle Kennedy is such an amazing writer. As always, the quality of writing in this book has knocked it out of the park. Which helps make up for the fact that I never really fell in love with the main characters, particularly Evan.

Gen had a wonderful character arc, and her growth was very clear. Evan never had that same growth, and a lot of the ways in which he tried to change were forced and felt quite false. I don't believe that at the end of this book he is a 'changed man' and won't go back to his destructive behaviours. Because I never truly fell in love with the characters, it made it really hard for me to root for their relationship.

Because these characters are on the younger side, sometimes they can feel more on the juvenile/immature side, but I think that works for the setting, content, and characters. If they were overly mature it wouldn't make sense. Ultimately, these characters talk like early twenty-somethings and they act like early twenty-somethings. If that isn't your thing, then that's okay! But maybe skip this book.

This was definitely a book that falls into the "Good" category for me. I would recommend it for fans of Elle Kennedy, and for people who like their characters a little rough around the edges.

Thank you, NetGalley, Elle Kennedy and St. Martin's Griffin for access to this book early in return for an honest review.

Bad Girl Reputation is a stand-alone novel that falls within the same world/characters as Good Girl Complex. It follows Gen, a girl who grew up in Avalon Bay and left suddenly. After her mother dies, she finds herself back in town and slowly starts to dig her heels back into the town she fought to escape from. We also get to follow Evan, the hot twin brother of Cooper (from GGC), Gen's ex-boyfriend, who was absolutely heartbroken after she left with no warning. What happens when the two of them cross paths again? When Evan realizes that Gen is not the girl she used to be?

I really really enjoyed this book. At the end of my review of Good Girl Complex, I said I had hoped that there would be a book about these two. I was super curious about why Gen left and her and Evan's relationship. I was really excited when I saw that this book was about them. I really enjoyed the dual-POV again and really getting to understand both of their feelings about the breakup and what they lost from it.

Gen was a really interesting character to me. I really loved seeing the growth that she had throughout the novel and understanding her past a bit more. She loves so deeply but doesn't want to hurt anyone again. She knows and takes in how much she affected people when she left, and she genuinely wants to change for the better. This is where Evan comes in. I loved his character development. We got to see him in GGC and saw how much he partied and fucked around with people. We finally got to see more of him and understand his relationship with his mother more. We got to see how much he genuinely loves Gen and how her leaving affected him. We also got to see him adapt and change for the better. I just really loved these two together. I found the ending to be a bit rushed but those two have been speeding through everything from the beginning so it kinda fits into their relationship.

Absolutely recommend this as a stand-alone and as a sequel to Good Girl Complex.

I went into this book blind, but I enjoyed the story. I like that the FMC and MC grew up together and even though they had toxic tendencies they changed in order to be with one another. I enjoyed seeing the story play out. This was a good book, but not my fav of the authors. I love the off campus series the most. I enjoy Elle Kennedys writing and I definitely recommend her books.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Likes: Easy read to sit back and enjoy summer with, messy couple drama, and relatable characters
Dislikes: Cheesy

This book was good! I enjoyed it more than the first, I found Evan and Gen so fresh and interesting as characters, I felt so bad for Gen at times, she is so misunderstood but Evan always loved her no matter what. If you liked Good Girl Complex you will LOVE this book.

I was very pleased with this book! I didn’t love the first installment in this series but this book really was great! I liked the character growth from Gen and Evan throughout the story and I loved their relationship with each other.
Bad Girl Reputation is a quick, cute read perfect for summer.

2.5 stars

I genuinely don't know how to rate and review this story. Because if I were honest and really fleshed out all my thoughts, it would probably sound super negative. Like, this book was red flag after red flag. Their relationship was incredibly toxic, and everything that would normally work for an alphahole hero in a paranormal or dark romance gave me all the icks in a contemporary setting. It's going to make me sound old, but I genuinely worry that a young woman is going to read this and be like, "Oh, is this romance? Is this what I should look for in a partner?" Girl no! Run! I also just wanted to throw a thousand therapists at all of the characters in the hopes that one of them would stick.

Despite all of this, I read it in one sitting and for the most part, enjoyed myself! Elle Kennedy's writing is easy and fun to read, and I'm sure I'll read whatever comes next despite all of my negative thoughts because, like Gen with Evan, I'll just keep coming back whether it's good for me or not.

I didn’t expect to like this book as much as I did. When I first picked it up I didn’t realize it was the second in the series. I decided to give it a go anyway. I’m glad I did, it read like a standalone.

I love that this story speaks volumes about growth and second chances. I’m not naïve enough to think this is how things will always turn out but I like to know it can.

Genevieve and Evan are your stereotypical bad girl/bad boy troublemakers. I love the story of them trying to change and the chance of redemption. As someone who know what it’s like to want a bad boy to change his habits for love, I really appreciated a chance to see how all that could play out. Absolutely loved this! Pretty steamy too! 🥳


Thank you to NetGalley for the Ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc of "Bad Girl Reputation" by Elle Kennedy.

I read Good Girl Complex back in January so I was delighted to find I was hopping back into the world of the Hartley twins, Evan and Cooper. When Gen comes back home for her mother's funeral she is no planning on staying long, especially when she runs into her ex, Evan, and almost immediately is back to making the bad decisions that caused her to leave town in the first place.

I really appreciated the fact that Kennedy didn't pin this whole character make-over on only Evan, or only Gen, when it came to this story. Both characters had to grow and realize that neither were the one causing the problems for the other and they needed to figure out their own lives for themselves. I also liked the immediate attraction between Gen and Evan that made it feel like they had been in love forever. Shelley Hartley made a come back in this novel as well and it was very interesting to read about her from Evan's point of view after only having Cooper's in the previous novel. She was much more human and though Evan was expecting her to bail each time he saw her he still had hope which gave this reader hope for her as well.
Cooper and Mac made a reprise in this story but I felt like they were a little flat. In fact with Gen being from the town of Avalon Bay it felt like Kennedy didn't make as much of an effort with the outside characters as much as she did in Good Girl Complex. The girls fell flat in way that felt almost like Gen expected them to be there when she wanted them to be but for the most part they didn't feel all that tight knit of a group. The only characters that really got enough attention asides from Evan and Gen were Harrison and Rusty who are the bad guy and the competition for Evan.
The one thing that really sticks out to me is that there wasn't really an ending to this. There was an epilogue but it was just another day in Gen and Evan's life. Things seem to be getting a little better, what with Shelly showing up but it didn't really feel like it was ending.

Overall I enjoyed reading this and it held my attention enough to be a quick almost couldn't put it down read. It's fun for a day or a few evenings of enjoyment but I was glad it wasn't much longer.

Read This If Enjoy:
•Small town vibes
•Second chance romances
•Reformed bad boy/girls

Thoughts:
I have been so excited for this one, because I loved Good Girl Complex! The second book in the series, which can be read as stand alone, didn’t disappoint. I loved the chemistry and banter between Evan & Gen. I also am a sucker for the reformed bad boy vibes. I do feel like it was a bit rushed and wrapped up a little too quickly. But I still really enjoyed it and didn’t want to put down. It’s a cute, quick, and easy read with some steam.