Elle Kennedy is an automatic buy author for me (I even had this book pre-ordered), I love her Off Campus and Briar U series, but to say I’m underwhelmed is an understatement.

I normally love a “bad guy/rich girl” trope but that was not the case with Good Girl Complex.
The story follows Mac, good girl daughter of a congressman and local bad boy Cooper. When Cooper ends up being fired from his job because of Preston, Mac’s rich boyfriend, Cooper and his friends decide the best way to get revenge is to make Mac fall in love with him… and then publicly dump her.

Within pages of starting the book I thought the plot reminded me of another book and then it hit me, this felt so much like After by Anna Todd. The only difference to me was that I actually liked the characters in After. It also took me way longer than expected to finish Good Girl Complex, I could normally finish a book of this size in a day but this took me two weeks! In the end I started skimming pages just to get it finished.

I don’t know what else to say except I am so disappointed.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was so good! It was my first time reading an Elle Kennedy and I really enjoyed it.

I thought Mac was such a great character and I warmed to her from the off - she was funny, determined and totally herself! I loved how she became more confident with her own goals and future plans as the novel went on. This was partly thanks to Cooper, who was dreamy.

The tortured former bad boy who starts perusing Mac to get revenge on her asshole boyfriend who got Cooper fired, who turns out to be a total dreamboat. He pushes Mac to purse her dreams and inspires her to be herself. I loved the growing tension between the two of them and how we got to experience them as a couple with their ups and downs. It was realistic in this sense and I loved that about it.

I also really liked Cooper’s friends and the relationships they had. They all looked out for each other, especially Cooper and his twin, Evan. Their uncle was another favourite of mine and he was so wholesome!

Overall, this was a great read and I really enjoyed it. Definitely want to read more by this author! I wished there had been an epilogue too as I would’ve loved one!

Thanks to Little Brown book group UK and Netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

BOOK REVIEW: Good Girl Complex by @ellekennedy33

4 Stars

I have loved a few of Elle Kennedy's series and so I was really looking forward to reading this new book and1 it did not let me down!

Good Girl Complex is about Mac, a rich young woman who is starting an elite college where her rich boyfriend goes. But Mac is putting on a front to be the perfect girlfriend and daughter for her judgemental and snobby parents and boyfriend. It takes meeting the local "bad boy" Cooper to realise that she doesn't have to pretend to be someone she isn't.
Mac is an interesting character. She is incredibly smart, hardworking and successful but not at all full or herself. I loved her personality and really liked that all she wants is to be herself and be loved for her true self. Her character progression was great to watch.
Cooper is huge mix of tough and vulnerable, kind, caring and yet has an amazing ability to make the wrong decisions! He is broken in many ways but is a good person under his tough exterior. I also loved how hard working he is and although I didn't like some aspects of his character to begin with, it was nice to see him change for the better.
The romance was the perfect balance of meaningful and smutty. I really routed for them!
There are SO many great characters in this book with a plethora of side characters that I grew to love and so I REALLY hope there are more books based around this group of characters.

The writing was perfect, I just wish there had been an epilogue as the ending felt a little rushed. The other reason this isn't a slightly higher rating is that the storyline isn't that unique, I have read a few very similar NA romances like this.

Overall, a fun and sexy romance with fantastic characters. I loved reading it and absolutely flew through it! Highly recommend picking this one up!

Please note that I was #gifted this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

I just... couldn't like this. It was easy enough to read and fast-paced but it was just kind of gross and glorified a lot of behavior that makes me uncomfortable. I've read other books of Kennedy's and enjoyed them but this one was just really really not for me. And all was forgiven and swept under the rug just far too easily. I also just didn't buy the chemistry between the main characters

Sadly this one was just not for me.

This was an exact copy of After. Like . . . ok, maybe a little less controlling and unhealthy, but everything else was the same. The same asshole boyfriend who cheats, the same overbearing snobby parents, the same badass group of mates, the poor boy from a small town, the rich girl with undiscovered desires. It was all the same. I wish I could give this a 0.5 - it wasn't good. Like at all.

I fell in love with this book and these characters and could not put it down! This is the first book I’ve read by Elle Kennedy but it makes me desperate to pick up her other series.

Mac is a new student at Garnet College, a place she doesn’t even want to attend but has to in order to please her parents. She is from a wealthy background and has a long-term boyfriend, who expects her to act like the other rich girls and form a plan for their future. All Mac wants to do is drop out of college and focus on her internet business, which is giving her a decent income outside of her parents, so she feels more independent.

‘Maybe we never got the family we deserved, but we ended up with the one we needed.’

Cooper is a townie, one of the locals from Avalon Bay, and is fed up of the rich clones messing things up in his town. Cooper gets fired from one of his jobs, after getting into a fight with Preston, a trust-fund guy, who was trying to corner one of his friends into doing something she didn’t want. After this ordeal, Cooper and his friends realise Preston has a girlfriend, none other than Mac, who is completely unaware of Preston and his constant cheating. They enter into a deal that Cooper can seduce Mac, get her to break up with Preston for him, and then Cooper will break up with Mac in front of Preston to humiliate them both. The only thing is Cooper didn’t expect to actually like Mac and start falling for her.

‘Those two strikes you listed might be strikes in your other world, but here, you and me, we’re exactly who and what we need to be.’

It’s been a while since I read a book with the bet trope in it, but this did not disappoint. Cooper meets Mac in a bar and they immediately get along great. They quickly become friends, and Mac starts to realise Preston may not be the right guy for her. I loved these characters and adore Cooper! I almost wish I hadn’t read it as quick as I did so I could still be reading about them.

‘Come home. I don’t know what I am if I can’t love you.’

If you love New Adult romances and growing tension between two opposites, then this is the one for you! I loved this book and don’t think my review has done it justice. It was a very addictive read, and I became more and more hooked as there was a threat of secrets being revealed.

Oh I loved this book a lot! I’ve read maybe 3 books before from @ellekennedy33 (my aim is to read them all) and I’ve always really loved them so my hopes were so high going into this one and I wasn’t disappointed at all!

It’s still set in the collage age range like the previous books of Elle’s I’ve read (do we still call this New Adult, I know these genres are always changing names?) but it felt a lot more grown up, maybe because it wasn’t set on a campus fully and both the main characters had a lot of stuff going on in their personal lives too.

Cooper was an absolute dream of a bad boy turned good and Mac was a really interesting female lead, I liked how she had a lot more layers to her than a lot of characters her age do in similar books, I enjoyed so much getting to know them both.

If you love the After movies (and books I guess but I haven’t read them) then I think you’d really love this!

From the blurb…
“Mackenzie 'Mac' Cabot is a people pleaser. It's exhausting, really, always following the rules. Mac has dreams of her own but to please her parents she moves to the beachside town of Avalon Bay to get her college degree.

Twenty-year-old Mac has 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.”

Released on February 1st✨

*Advanced Copy From NetGalley

I LOVED THIS BOOK! Elle Kennedy you have done it again.
It gives major punk 57 vibes and I'm living for it. I fell in love with Cooper and rooted for Mack, like talk about female power!!

Thank you Netgalley, Little Brown Book Group publishers and Elle Kennedy for sending me this ARC 🥰

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Released 01.02.2022 - I did not expect the absolute emotional rollercoaster that this book sent me on. From the first page to the last, I could not put this down without it taking up every waking thought I had. I flew through this book SO fast and it has left me reeling. Elle’s writing style and characters are so wonderfully expressive and full of emotion that they have you loving them from the first chapter. (Except you, Preston.)

We see our heroine Mackenzie “Mac” Cabot go through a journey of self exploration and discovery - leaving her toxic relationship and finally challenging her parents and what is expected of her, and our hero, Cooper Hartley, is right there with her. What starts as a bet after Preston, Mackenzie’s boyfriend, gets Cooper fired from his bar tending gig, turns into hot make-outs and secret rendezvous all with the over arching theme that people aren’t always what you expect them to be.

I need more from the Avalon Bay crew immediately - and definitely more about Cooper’s wild twin brother, Evan… that is an emotional journey I want to see!

Overall - 10/10. 5 stars. Absolutely beautiful read. ❤️⭐️✨

The glorification of cheating trope is not my favorite, and this book had a lot of that. anyway, I really tried to love this, but I wanted more than just good girl meets bad boy, she’s rich & he isn’t, opposites attract, blah blah blah. the ending felt a bit rushed & there was no epilogue, overall I was very disappointed

This was a cute romance about a spark between similar people from different worlds.

Mackenzie (Mac) is a sweet, ambitious girl that comes from a very wealthy family. Though she has her own ambitions, she's stuck living the life her parents want her to live - college, marriage, perfect housewife. Cooper comes from the other side of the tracks - a 'townie' of Avalon Bay, the town where Mackenzie attends college. The two meet on a night out and, as they become friends, Mac realizes she has never felt as alive as she feels when she's with Cooper. But Cooper's hiding something that could tear their relationship apart.

I quickly got into this story and found it pretty fast paced throughout. It's steamier than I expected and at times I was so eager to get to the next steamy scene that I couldn't put it down!

I have been an Elle Kennedy fan for a few years, I love just how quickly and easily she sucks me into her books. Good Girl Complex was no different.



The book follows two main characters from “opposite sides of the tracks” Mackenzie (Mac) is a rich girl, the daughter of a US Congressman who’s upbringing was very privileged. Cooper is a local of our setting Avalon Bay who had a much different upbringing with his father passing and his mother’s awful parenting.



I love this trope, I think it brings something brilliant to the table, the chance the see the world through two totally different characters eyes while also seeing all the things they have in common.



I read this in basically one sitting and did not want to put it down, I really do hope the author writes more instalments set in this town as there are more than a few characters that I’d love to see have a happy ending.

Goodreads rating 3 Stars

I have been really looking forward to The Good Girl Complex. It’s a college romance with an opposite side of the tracks relationship between Mackenzie, who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and Cooper who works hard for everything he has.

I found this a pleasant, easy read but nothing really like the other Elle Kennedy novels I’ve read.

It’s not really fair to compare this to The Deal but I couldn’t help but do that. This was a lighter, less gritty type of book and there were a couple of awkward scenes that felt like EK was struggling to write her usually easy flowing style. The banter didn’t seem to come as easily as in the Briar U novels and instead, the dialogue seemed forced and lacklustre in places.

I also struggled to really like the hero. The nature of Cooper’s role in the story makes him very likeable to begin with and I’m not sure if he ever really recovered from that.

What we are given, as the reader, doesn’t really give us a sense of how or why there is a strong bond/attraction between between Mac and Cooper and the constant butting of heads over their social standings started to get very stereotypical and was a bit too predictable for me.

One particular issue I had was that there is a female to male slap at one point. This is a problem for me. It wouldn’t be acceptable coming from a male to a female and I was surprised at it in a contemporary romance.


I think all in all, because of what Elle Kennedy has shown us before it’s just hard not to want more from her.

Many thanks to Little Brown Book Group UK and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I will be posting this on goodreads tomorrow.

Good Girl Complex is a a delicious slow-burn, opposites attract, angsty, and entertaining new adult romance that just solidified the MAJOR CRUSH I have for this author. Elle Kennedy's stories, for me, are honestly one in a million and her latest novel is just another example of her exceptional talent. This book just hit all of the right spots for me.

Mac and Cooper just totally worked from the first few words. I loved them together—loved how they slowly came together. Even with the snark—especially with the snark—at the start. I loved their banter, connection and the attraction between the two. That said, this book was not at all what I was expecting. I mean, I don't even really know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this angsty deliciousness that toyed with my emotions and didn't always feel comfortable. However, I was completely won over by all the swoons and I was completely addicted to this story. This was one of those unicorn reads where I'm sucked in by the intensity of the storyline, and don't come up for air until the very last page. I lost time reading this book but I loved every minute of it.

This book was opposites attract deliciousness that I devoured and left desperate for more. And while I would have loved an epilogue, I simply adored this book and these characters. I was crazy about this book, even the parts that made me uncomfortable. I loved the angsty twists that were inevitably smoothed and comforted and set aglow by the evolution of Mac and Cooper’s story. I loved most of the secondary characters (Hello Evan!) and cannot wait to see where this series goes from here. So much potential. I'm already completely intrigued, 100% invested, and absolutely greedy for more! This is a major hit for me and I absolutely recommend!

A fun, fast paced sexy read. Focused on a rich happy go lucky girl and a tall tattooed local man. There's tension, a triangle, a bet and an adorable puppy. I loved the main characters, mac was brilliant and classy who didn't let anyone walk over her. Cooper was a tough local man who didn't have the easiest life, he hated the rich tourists of his town and initially tried to woo mac as a way to get back at a rich frat boy who got him fired. Thw side characters were also brilliant and I hope that Evan gets his own book. Yhe pacing was nice i just wish there had been a little more of an epilogue to see the happy ever after

A quick and easy read that I found myself picking up after a long day to unwind. The characters are beautifully written and I came to love them within the first few pages and was rooting for them all the way to the end. At times I wanted to stop reading because I just wanted the experience to go on for longer.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Good Girl Complex is the first book from Elle that I’ve read in a long, long time. Both of us have enjoyed Elle’s Off-Campus series so I was looking forward to starting this and it did not let me down!

The story follows the two main characters Mac and Cooper. The narrative is told in a dual perspective which I love in contemporary romance. Mackenzie - Mac - is starting her freshman year after taking a year off to work on her business. She meets Cooper on her first night out with her new roomie Bonnie and despite Cooper’s shady reasons for getting to know Mac they hit it off from the first night.

The story unfolds as the pair grow in friendship and ultimately become romantically involved. Cooper helps Mac to realise her full potential and brings her out of the shadow of her parent’s high expectations. I’m looking forward to the audiobook of this as I can totally hear Joe Arden as Cooper!

The chemistry between Cooper and Mac is so tense right from the start. Having said that, the secret Cooper’s keeping from Mac weighed heavily on my mind and I kind of hated him a bit for it.

If you’re a fan of Elle’s or a fan of other authors like Lauren Blakely then I’m sure you’ll enjoy this!

4.5*

This book was everything I needed and more!
The characters were well developed and definitely not the stereotypical rich girl and townie boy that you would expect.
Their chemistry from the get go is electric and their banter is great, it was like they were an old married couple who’d know each other all their lives.
I loved the friendship and found family aspect that this book had going on and I loved the introduction of all the characters and how they all fitted seamlessly into the story.
Mac is a confident, ambitious and knows what she wants kinda girl( well eventually)
Cooper is an arrogant pretty boy who always gets what he wants and falls in deep when he’s trying to get revenge on the rich boy.
The writing was addictive and made it hard to put the book, hence when I read it in two sittings 🤣
From reading the synopsis the book wasn’t what I expected but I was living for these tropes! Though I do have to say I’m not a fan of the cheating trope but it was done in a way that was almost tasteful( can you call cheating tasteful?) where you didn’t just automatically make Mac the bad guy.
Solid 4.5 and not a 5 only because I think this book would’ve been perfect with an epilogue that gave us more on the making up of their relationship and seeing how they fared.

I was a huge fan of the off campus series so I really couldn’t wait to read this from the same author. I loved the idea of the good girl / bad boy, but sadly I didn’t really gel with the initial setup of him revenge dating her.
The story is fairly lighthearted and easy to read but it lacks the feeling of being part of the friend group that off campus does so well. I didn’t entirely believe in the main characters connection and sadly it was just an ok read in the end.
I would have loved to see a longer end scene too, it was pretty rushed wrap up.

** 3.5 Stars / 5 ""

Good Girl Complex is the first book by Elle Kennedy to be traditionally published and I am so excited for her. In 2019 I fell down a rabbit hole and was absolutely absorbed by her Off Campus and Briar U series. And whilst I adore those series I went into this book completely open minded.

What works so well in this book is the setting: Avalon Bay. A seaside town that has houses and buildings in dire need of repair after years of storms. The ‘Local’s have an incredible sense of community about them an “I’ll help you out, and when I need help I’ll give you a shout” kind of relationship with each other. They stick together. But Avalon Bay is also home to a prestigious college campus – Garnet College. The trust fund kind of kids, throw money at a problem and it will go away, taking a freaking helicopter to campus. But those two distinct communities don’t mix well together, and it’s so interesting to watch them interact. It shows up in how our main characters Mackenzie (her Dad’s part of the government) and Cooper (the local tatted bad boy) solve their issues and communicate with another.

Mackenzie and Cooper have a great friendship and are so enjoyable to read about – their banter, their shenanigans – all of it. But when you mix friendship and lust… things start to get a little messy. Whilst I didn’t fancy why their friendship began, that whole ‘issue’ solved itself quite quickly. Admittingly, the first 10-15% or so I was rather hesitant about continuing but ultimately I’m glad I did. (Although I wished he had confessed sooner but…)

I wasn’t as in love with the characters as I have previously been with other Elle Kennedy books. They were fun to read but nothing that makes me have all the feels about them. My favourite character was probably Evan – Cooper’s twin brother. He has the most character growth out of them all and I really hope this is a series so that we get to see more of him.

The spice… sadly just wasn’t there for me. I’ve seen a lot of other reviewers comment that they found it spicy, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I’m not sure if this is due to me not feeling that connection between them, or just having read a lot heavier stuff this month already. The ‘spice’ in this book felt like a drop in the ocean in comparison to what I know Elle Kennedy can do. Part of me wonders if this is due to it being traditionally published and therefore trying to be more palatable to a larger audience, or if potentially Elle Kennedy wants to step away from sex-scene heavy books. Either one is completely okay and understandable, it has good plot points and is enjoyable without being so heavy in the bedroom scenes.

Don’t get me wrong – this is a delightful read. It’s fun, has a great setting and I loved the secondary storylines of the hotel and Cooper’s mother. And ultimately I was left wanting more – seeing how the hotel turns out, hopefully the progress of restoring the town, and of course the characters (and Evan – especially Evan).

Thank you to Netgalley & the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Thanks for reading!