REVIEW: The Score by Elle Kennedy
Dear Elle Kennedy,
I begged Jane shamelessly for an early copy of The Score (she has connections). Your Off-Campus series is one of the best going around at the moment and I basically inhale them at the earliest opportunity. I started the book that night, was forced to actually sleep, and then do adulting the next day but I finished it in less than 24 hours all told. And then I had a sad because it was over. (I decided to combat this depression by re-reading The Deal. Good move Kaetrin!).
The actual reading part however was pretty much full of happy book sighs, big grins, actual laughter and even a few tears (but I won’t tell why). When I thought about it*, I could come up with a couple of little niggles and I think it ended a bit abruptly, but basically I just loved it. Really – everyone just go read it now. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Why are you still here?? Go!
(*I had to think pretty hard but I think there’s something in the reviewer handbook that says if you can’t find something to gripe about you’re doing it wrong.)
I love the dual (first person, present tense) POV which gives me lots of time in the heads of both main characters – Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis and Allie Hayes – as well as the writing style which gives me loads of snappy dialogue and banter, not just between the main characters, but within the wider group of friends as well. (Honestly, the discussion between Dean and Beau about Twilight was hilarious. In fact, here’s a snippet of it. You’re welcome.)
“Twilight. The vampire book.”
His wary eyes study my face. “What about it?”
“Okay, so you know how Bella’s blood is extra special? Like how it gives Edward a raging boner every time he’s around her?”
“Are you fucking with me right now?”
I ignore that. “Do you think it happens in real life? Pheromones and all that crap. Is it a bullshit theory some horndog dreamed up so he could justify why he’s attracted to his mother or some shit? Or is there actually a biological reason why we’re drawn to certain people? Like goddamn Twilight. Edward wants her on a biological level, right?”
“Are you seriously dissecting Twilight right now?”
God, I am. This is what Allie has reduced me to. A sad, pathetic loser who goes to a bar and forces his friend to participate in a Twilight book club.
Dean has been a favourite from the beginning. He’s an exhibitionist ladies man who has an aversion to wearing shirts (he has an excellent chest so this is no hardship for onlookers). He has lots and lots of sex. He rarely goes back for seconds – the world of Briar College is his sexual buffet. He’s adventurous, completely charming and doesn’t bat an eyelash at fucking in semi-public spaces (he particularly enjoys sex in the living room of the house he shares with his hockey team-mates and it doesn’t matter who else is around really). He’s sexually open and unashamed and I just love him. He’s not mean or cruel. He doesn’t make promises he doesn’t keep and he makes sure anyone he’s hooking up with is on the same (no-relationship) page as he is. He also doesn’t slut shame the girls he’s with. He holds them to exactly the same standard he holds himself. Sex is fun and as long as everyone involved is consenting and being safe, who’s being harmed? (Answer: No-one.) It’s not one rule for him and one rule for the girls. He doesn’t think of them as sluts or whores. In fact, he explicitly says as much during a conversation with Allie when he tells her to remove the word “slut” from her vocabulary.
Allie is a “nester”. She doesn’t do casual sex. She likes relationships and cuddling and hanging out and calling each other late at night. So she’s the last person anyone would think would end up with Dean. However, a(nother) breakup with her long term boyfriend Sean (this time for good), a bottle of tequila and Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis are proof that anything is possible.
Yeah…I need to nip this Dean idea in the bud. I don’t know why he’s so eager to jump into bed with me again, but I’m confident he’ll get over it eventually. The guy has the attention span of a fruit fly, and the affection-giving habits of a puppy, offering his sexual devotion to whoever happens to be holding the treat. By which I mean the vagina.
Allie is a drama major and Hannah’s (from The Deal) room-mate and BFF. Both Hannah and Garrett are protective of her and have given Dean strict instructions to keep his dick away from Allie. Too bad Dean is not great at taking instruction from his friends, especially where his dick is concerned. He’d never force anyone but he’s not averse to a little persuasion. And Dean can be very persuasive.
Here is where one of those little niggles came in (when I thought about it afterwards) – I didn’t completely understand why Dean became fixated on Allie after their drunken (but not too drunk) hook up. (Perhaps there is something to the Twilight theory.) Sure the sex was awesome but sex for him often is. Allie is hot but so are all the women Dean has sex with. What made Allie different? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t really care. I wanted Allie and Dean to be together so I was happy enough to go along with the story, but in hindsight, I don’t think the case for “what’s different about this girl?” was fully made out. The blurb suggests Dean’s interest in long term comes after something tragic happens. And something tragic does happen but it happens fairly late in the book (and no, I’m not telling) and Dean is all in with Allie well before then.
For all Dean’s wild ways, he is smart, funny, caring and kind. He is also filthy rich and has lived very much the charmed life but he was raised to earn his money and to try and not merely to skate by (heh, see what I did there?) on his name so he doesn’t like to use his name to get things. He works hard at school and gets excellent grades. Most things, as it happens, come easily to him and when things get really hard, he faces a new challenge – and he doesn’t do it so well at first. And that brings me to my other little niggle. I’d have liked to have seen Dean prove himself to Allie to round out the HEA. I understood what happened, I believed his apology (and I’m so glad you didn’t take the narrative to the place I really didn’t want it to go) but I did have a moment’s disquiet about what might happen the next time life knocks Dean on his ass. Will he be okay then? I’d like to think he will but I can’t say 100% for sure from the narrative. Also, perhaps he could have groveled a little more.
Most of the book is Dean and Allie hooking up – at first on the down-low but later openly and their courtship is wonderful. They bond over terrible French TV and conversation – there was a lovely point late in the book where Allie is thinking about all the things she likes about Dean and his (amazing) sexual prowess is something like fourth on the list. I believed they not only had the hots for each other and were sexually compatible, but that they genuinely liked each other and were in all the other important ways compatible too.
Allie is awesome too. She’s a talented actress and her arc involves making decisions about her future – the LA/Hollywood route with lucrative offers for sitcoms and romcoms or the New York theater route where the roles are meatier but may not bring the fame and fortune she might easily obtain on the West Coast. She is as sexually adventurous (in many ways) as Dean and she mostly laughs at Dean’s (over-)confidence and machismo. She doesn’t bill and coo over Dean but treats him like a regular person. I also identified with Allie because of this:
I’m tired of wondering how Sean is doing and fighting the urge to call him. I might not want to get back together, but I hate knowing that I hurt someone I care about. I have this terrible habit of wanting to make everyone happy, even if it means sacrificing my own happiness. My dad insists it’s an admirable quality, but sometimes I wish I were more selfish.
Growing up as the family peacemaker, I can totally relate Allie.
Dean’s perfect life is threatened somewhat when a new Defensive Coach is appointed. Dean has history with Coach O’Shea and it’s not good. What I thought was really interesting though was that O’Shea wasn’t portrayed as completely out of line or unbalanced. His POV was understandable in the circumstances even though Dean felt he was sometimes singled out by O’Shea unfairly. And, in the end, it is probably O’Shea who is at least indirectly responsible for something life-changing (and excellent) for Dean.
Most of all, the Off-Campus crew are people I’d like to hang around with (whether they’d want to hang around with me is another question, but let’s just pretend I’m hip and young and super cool, okay?). I love hanging out with all of them in the books. I told a friend my overwhelming thoughts at the end of The Score were *big grins* and *happy sigh*. It made my heart happy and it made me laugh.
I poke myself in the eye. “Would you stop touching yourself?” I drop the mascara tube on the table and pick up a tissue to wipe the smear of black I just made at the inside corner of my eyelid because I can’t keep my fricking eyes off Dean.
“What’s wrong, baby? You jealous? I was thinking of how hot you look.” He rolls to his side. “You make a little circle with your mouth when you put your eye makeup on. It’s basically begging me to stick my dick in there.”
Nope, there’s nothing warm and squishy about my relationship with this guy. I shoot him a disbelieving glance. “We just got done having morning sex,” I remind him. I apply two quick swipes of the mascara before Dean’s hand can do more damage under the bed sheets.
“That was thirty minutes ago. Since then, you’ve showered, waved your tits and bare ass in front of me getting dressed, and then made little blowjob circles with your mouth. So yeah, I’m horny again. Sue me.”
I throw my coat on and lean a knee on the mattress to kiss him goodbye. “You’ll have to jerk off then because I have class and I don’t want to be late.”
He curls up and kisses my neck first, then my lips. “I’m going to rub one off now so that I can last longer tonight.”
Damn it. Now I’m horny.
Grade: A- and a definite recommend from me.
Regards,
Kaetrin
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I clicked the preorder button when I saw your review in q. Squeak.
I totally stayed up ridiculously late reading this book. (Ok, it was more like skimming since it was between midnight and 2 AM, but now I’m going back and savoring it).
Out of curiosity, where were you worried the apology narrative was going to go?
Also, TUCKER. WANT.
How can he make sure of this? I’m asking in all seriousness. Is he a mind and heart reader? Does he have some magic power that makes all the women he sleeps with able to separate sex from love? This is something a lot of women can’t easily do and with as many women as he sleeps with, some percentage has to fall in love with him.
This is the main reason I’m on the fence about reading Dean’s book, even though I enjoyed The Deal. I have difficulty buying the “no one gets hurt” aspect of his sex life.
The lecture on slut shaming sounds good, though it troubles me that the heroine would need to be lectured about something like that. It’s also surprising after the way the other heroes in the series liberally used the word “puck bunny.”
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@Sirius: Yay! :D
@Lozza: Yes – Tucker!! OMG.
As for your other question
Buried Comment: Show
@Janine: He does is by only having hook ups. And he doesn’t go back for seconds. He lets the girl know he’s only interested in a one night stand/hook up and if she’s on board, great. If not, he’s not interested. If a guy tells you up front he’s not looking for a relationship but is up for a one-time only hook up the girl would be pretty foolish to manufacture a forever relationship out of that.
In Dean’s case, someone did get hurt – his high school girlfriend. He has major regrets about that and because of that, he makes sure everyone is on the same page before anything happens and he doesn’t have relationships that last beyond one-time. If he was dating the same girl for a few weeks, I could buy that she might come to reasonably believe that they have more than a hook up but until Allie*, after high school, Dean doesn’t do that. So I’m pretty comfortable with his morals here.
*And of course both he AND Allie do fall in love as they spend more time together.
As for the puck bunny thing – my take on that is perhaps a little different to yours (and I may have to hand in my junior grade feminist card as a result!). I think a puck bunny is a girl who wants to hook up with a hockey player. Any hockey player would do. It’s not about finding a guy hot or having a connection with a particular person (however briefly), it’s no more than a notch on her belt. It’s so they can say they banged a hockey player. So I don’t find it slut shamey to refer to the girls who do that as puck bunnies. I think that’s different from a girl who has a hook up with a guy she is attracted to and I think that’s the distinction Dean makes (and the other heroes of the series) as well. He has a dim view of puck bunnies. He doesn’t want to be interchangeable with any other guy on the team any more than most women would want to be viewed that way.
Allie is a relationship girl and her internal monologue tells her hook ups and one-night stands are slutty. That’s her self-talk. I get that. Dean breaks his rule about going back for more with Allie and they agree to have hook ups until they have worked each other “out of their systems” (which, as we know in romance NEVER works) but Allie is uncomfortable about doing that without the imprimatur she feels a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship has. That’s why Dean talks to her about it. Sure, it’s self-serving – he’s trying to persuade her to keep having sex with him. But I saw nothing in his behaviour which indicated it wasn’t also entirely true.
I hope that helps.
Only having one time hook ups shows he’s at least thought about it, but I disagree that there’s no way someone might fall in love with him under those circumstances. Especially if that someone was watching him from afar without his knowledge and had developed a crush on him, which seems to be the case for these athlete heroes in many NA books. In that scenario, I think it’s quite possible to tip over from a crush to “in love” — which isn’t the same thing as the kind of love you develop through a long term relationship, but can be devastating nonetheless if you can’t help but hope for more than a one time hook up. So with a hero like Dean, I’d wonder how many hearts he’s broken without knowing or caring that that’s what he was doing.
I find the term “going back for seconds” problematic because women aren’t a serving. In addition, if I ever met a guy who told me he never went back for seconds, I’d run the other way and even if he said he didn’t believe in slut shaming, I wouldn’t believe him as his behavior seems to indicate a girl isn’t worthy of further attention once she’s slept with him.
Of course, in a romance novel we can get into a character’s head, and if that’s not the motive that’s on the page, then that’s not what the author is going for.
As for the puck bunny references, I find the rationale you mention (which I’ve come across in other books, possibly Kennedy’s) problematic as well, because if he’s not a mind reader, then how would he know a girl views him as interchangeable? Is it because she’s slept with half the hockey team? But Bella in Sarina Bowen’s series did that, and the guys weren’t interchangeable to her. The whole “puck bunny” thing rests on a very flimsy assumption that it’s okay to zoomorphise a young woman for enjoying sex with athletes.
I’ve enjoyed my share of NA athlete books and I’ll probably read this one, too, because they are a lot of fun. But I think many of these books try to have their cake and eat it too. The guys sleep around a lot and are portrayed as sexy and heroic for it, while the women usually have far less sexual experience. At the same time, they take a stance against slut shaming. I enjoy the books but feel there is a cognitive dissonance there.
@Janine: “going back for seconds” was my phrasing not the author’s Janine. (and, for what it’s worth, the seconds I was referring to was the sex, not the woman. That may be a distinction without a difference I suppose.)
I do think there’s a difference between a girl who unashamedly likes sex (like Bella) and a puck bunny so we’ll have to agree to disagree there.
As for a girl who falls in love with Dean after a one night stand because she’s been crushing on him from afar? I think she’s only got herself to blame if he doesn’t magically fall in love with her due to the power of her amazing hoo-ha. Frankly, I think you’re reaching here. Dean can’t be held responsible for someone else’s fantastical imaginings.
@Kaetrin: I apologize — I thought I’d seen that phrasing in the books, but I must have imagined it.
But I never said that! What I said was that there was no way to differentiate between a girl who likes sex unashamedly (like Bella) and a girl who views all hockey players as interchangeable and just wants to sleep with any one of them without being privy to their thoughts.
From the outside, it might not be easily apparent to Dean (esp. since he seems to spend so little time with these women) whether or not it’s true that he’s interchangeable to them. I doubt a woman such as the one you described would come out and tell him that she viewed him as interchangeable with his teammates, so it seems like a convenient excuse to stick a label on a woman when all we readers really know about her is that she’s attracted to hockey players. Unless we decide that Dean must somehow be able to know her innermost thoughts.
I guess what I’m saying is that if the author wants to convince me that it’s okay to call someone a puck bunny, then she needs to “show, not tell” that the heroes are all interchangeable to that character. Having the hero state it isn’t enough for me.
Maybe not, but that’s not the same as saying nobody gets hurt. Dean and his teammates are portrayed as gorgeous, athletic, talented, famous on campus as well as great in bed — I think that would be enough right there to cause some women to fall in love with them.
And if he’s having sex even twice a week without ever sleeping with the same woman twice, then that means he’s sleeping with a hundred women every year. Being in his third or fourth year at the university would put him at having slept with 300 or 400 women, and that’s a conservative number!
Sleeping with that many women, I find it hard to believe he wouldn’t have encountered at least a dozen or so who developed feelings for him. If he believes no one has ever been hurt, then he’s fooling himself.
@Janine:
But how is Dean responsible for that? If they already love him and he hasn’t even had sex with them yet? That makes no sense to me. How can you love someone, truly be in love with them, if you don’t know them at all? Like I said above, Dean can’t be held responsible for someone else’s delusion.
@Kaetrin, great review and I love that we both bookmarked some of the same passages (Twilight and attention of a fruit fly) – my only niggle was that I felt the witty dialogue faded a little towards the end, but as I said in my review that’s like saying there was less jam at the end of the donut – hey, it’s still a donut right?
@Janine, Dean explicitly tells girls he only does hook-ups, he’s not interested in seeing them again (even just for sex) and he doesn’t want a relationship. He picks girls who have a similar philosophy – indeed he notes that at least one girl gave him ‘the speech’ before he could give it to her. Also, I think it is telling that he only ever seems to hook-up with girls in the communal living area – there is nothing personal or private about the sex. Given his history I think he is very careful to avoid girls who want boyfriends or relationships. Of course if a girl lies about her feelings, pretends she is happy with what Dean suggests and acts like she only wants sex then, sure, Dean could get it wrong but I don’t personally feel that he would be to blame. He also makes a comment that he doesn’t hook-up with [whatever the most junior year of college is called – sophomore?] because they can be (something like) too vulnerable. I think this is why reading is so fascinating – we all read the same words and react differently to them. You say po-tay-to I say po-taa-to (well actually I say po-tay-to).
Anyway, I loved it, great review.
I don’t normally read m/f (much less contemporary m/f) but there is something really tempting about this series. I might have to try it.
I have to agree… there is a chance someone delusional might get their heart broken. But I don’t see how the MC could possibly be responsible for that or prevent that. What exactly is he supposed to do? “Protect” women by refusing to have casual sex with them?
I guess I think that with the number of women he sleeps with (again, at least three or four hundred in his college career) he should be aware that there is a statistical likelihood that some will develop feelings for him and get hurt. I don’t necessarily believe that it’s delusional for them to read the great sex as a sign of interest or care. His words may say one thing but his actions can be viewed as saying another. I don’t put the entire responsibility for that on Dean, but not do I think he has no way to realize that this could happen.
I haven’t read the book yet, though, so maybe it would convince me otherwise.
@Evelyn Ellicott:
No, but maybe he could get to know them a little first? I guess it’s the notion that the “no going back for seconds” rule would be a means of ensuring that no one gets hurt that I’m taking issue with. It seems likely to me that it would just cause more people to get hurt. If he’s having sex with hundreds of women, how does he even know they aren’t dating someone else who could get hurt? The notion that this way of life protects the feelings of others doesn’t ring true to me.
And then to call some women puck bunnies because they supposedly view him as interchangeable with his teammates is hypocritical. What, these hundreds of women aren’t interchangeable to him?
@Janine:
” I don’t put the entire responsibility for that on Dean”
In that scenario, I would put zero responsibility on Dean. The best anyone can do is be upfront, honest, and respectful towards their partners. There is nothing he can do to prevent other people from lying to him or deluding themselves.
Yes, it’s true that someone might end up hurt through no fault of his own. That’s unfortunate.
@Evelyn Elliott: Fair enough. And sorry my autocorrect messed up the spelling of your name.
Ha! I didn’t even notice until you said anything.
People spell it wrong all the time, but that’s a new one.
I don’t think we can have it both ways. We can’t say women have agency and then, on the other hand, argue that they must be protected against themselves.
Dean was explicit with the women he slept with that he was only interested in having a good, physical time. They came back repeatedly for that good, physical time. He never shamed them. In fact, one of the things I enjoyed in the book was how frank and honest Dean and Allie were about their past sexual relationships with each other. It wasn’t a point of jealousy between either of them, but rather an acknowledgment that they were both adults, capable of making their own decisions about their sex lives.
The term “puck bunny” may be derogatory to some extent, but it’s also not an untrue description. There are definitely women that exist for the sole purpose of sleeping with a certain type of athlete. Is it any different than calling Dean a manwhore? The overwhelming spirit of the book is that it is sex positive in every way. To pick out one term and then color the book that one color isn’t fair to the book itself.
@Janine: Don’t you think if he got to know them a little first that would make it MORE likely they might develop feelings for him or misinterpret his interest? If he’s clearly only interested in a friendly hookup and no relationship, isn’t it an obvious warning not to get your feelings involved? Caveat emptor.
I just can’t get on board with the idea that Dean is responsible for some girl potentially developing feelings for him over a non-relationship. That reeks of the girl not being responsible for her own actions and feelings – which renders the girl… what? A victim of Kilgrave from Jennifer Jones?
I’ve been thinking more about the puck bunny thing. I think I misspoke earlier. I think Dean wants sex and, as part of that deal, he wants to give pleasure as well as get it. He sees it as a fun activity; like naked Twister or something. His goal is sex and pleasure – he treats the women he’s with with respect and friendly affection and honesty. The “puck bunny” is *depicted* as wanting sex with “a hockey player”. It’s not about pleasure or respect or affection – it’s about prestige and bragging rights. I *think* Dean is after the pleasure and respect and affection kind of no-strings sex (at least before he falls in love with Allie – after he just wants her and no-one else) and is completely turned off by the idea of someone having sex with him merely to brag that they had sex with “a hockey player” (I think he’s perfectly happy with people bragging they had sex with Dean di Laurentis mind you – but I think there’s a subtle difference in what’s going on there).
Having said that, the whole puck bunny thing is from the male POV and, not having read any scenes from the POV of such a person, I can’t tell whether that narrative is actually reliable.
@Jane:
That is definitely the thing I most object to in the argument. If the girl needs to be protected from her own choices then her agency is gone.
@Jane and @Kaetrin: I never said Dean was responsible for the women’s feelings, what I said is that if he thinks this is a good way to protect them from getting hurt, he is also delusional. I don’t have a problem with casual sex per se but I do have an issue with the portrayal of casual sex as a protective action toward one’s partners. If he is doing it to protect his own feelings from getting involved and possibly hurt, that would be a far more believable motive to me.
@Kaetrin: Well, I think it is Dean and the author who feel that these women must be protected against themselves. Otherwise why institute a “no going back for seconds” rule?
@Janine: Where did I suggest that was what he was doing? I said he was honest and that he held the girls to the same standard to which he holds himself.
@Kaetrin: When you said this:
@Janine: again, the “no going back for seconds” are my words, not the author’s.
@Janine: In high school Dean didn’t want a long term relationship. He thought (and his girlfriend and he had discussed and agreed in fact) that when they went off to separate colleges, they would amicably split up and that would be that. However she got hurt and he regrets that.
So now, he makes it extra super clear that he is not looking for a long term relationship. This is my reading into the text, but I think he saw that his high school girlfriend believed what they did rather than what they said – ie, they had been dating for reasonably long time (I can’t remember now how long) and she thought things had changed whereas he thought they were on the same page. I think he saw that his behaviour was inconsistent with his stated goals of not having a long term relationship and he subsequently adjusted his behaviour to be consistent with this stated goals so as to limit the chances of another girl getting hurt. I don’t see it as a move which reduces the girls’ agency, but rather the actions of someone trying to be a not-asshole.
@Kaetrin: Yeah, I got that it was your wording the first time you said that it was. Let’s use my wording and call it no repeats. I don’t really buy that no repeats makes him a nicer, more considerate guy. I have to imagine that when girls sleep with him and then don’t hear from him it stings some, even for some of those who had no delusions about him. For example if a girl enjoys sleeping with him and wants a repeat herself, just for the sake of good sex.
I’ve enjoyed my share of rake heroes in a variety of romance subgenres, and I’ve enjoyed some rake heroines too — I wish there were more of those! So it’s not the casual sex that bugs me but rather the no repeats rule and the notion that this rule is thoughtful and considerate. I have a hard time swallowing that but we can agree to disagree.
In any case, I feel I’ve said enough on the topic. The never-with-the-same-girl-twice is a bit of a turnoff but it’s not a deal breaker for me, just more of an annoyance. I will probably read the book and maybe that will change my mind or maybe it won’t. I’ll bow out of the discussion now because it feels like it is getting heated and I have other things to do today.
@Janine: I don’t think I’ve said that the no repeats rule is thoughtful and considerate. I said I appreciated his honesty. He makes no promises he does not keep*. If a guy tells a girl he’s not going to call her – if he doesn’t even know her phone number – I’m really not sure how that’s going to sting if he doesn’t actually call her.
*to the girls he hooks up with prior to Allie.