Review: All Played Out

Posted June 26, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Review: All Played OutAll Played Out Series: Rusk University #3
on May 12th 2015
Format: eBook (320 pages) • GoodreadsAmazon Barnes & Noble
four-stars

Content warning: because of its genre and/or because it has older characters than you normally see on my blog, it may contain sex, drinking/drugs, and/or violence.

First person in her family to go to college? CHECK.
Straight A’s? CHECK.
On track to graduate early? CHECK.
Social life? …..yeah, about that….

With just a few weeks until she graduates, Antonella DeLuca’s beginning to worry that maybe she hasn’t had the full college experience. (Okay... Scratch that. She knows she hasn't had the full college experience).
So Nell does what a smart, dedicated girl like herself does best. She makes a "to do" list of normal college activities.
Item #1? Hook up with a jock.

Rusk University wide receiver Mateo Torres practically wrote the playbook for normal college living. When he’s not on the field, he excels at partying, girls, and more partying. As long as he keeps things light and easy, it's impossible to get hurt... again. But something about the quiet, shy, sexy-as-hell Nell gets under his skin, and when he learns about her list, he makes it his mission to help her complete it.
Torres is the definition of confident (And sexy. And wild), and he opens up a side of Nell that she's never known. But as they begin to check off each crazy, exciting, normal item, Nell finds that her frivolous list leads to something more serious than she bargained for. And while Torres is used to taking risks on the field, he has to decide if he's willing to take the chance when it's more than just a game.

Together they will have to decide if what they have is just part of the experiment or a chance at something real.

thoughts

I really love this series. All three books so far have been incredibly fast, low-drama new adult reads. This was my BEA train read and I managed to get over halfway done during the two 1.5 hour trips to and from the city. Definitely the perfect read for that occasion!

At first glance, the premise for this one seemed a little to similar to All Broke Down: the smart, good girl meets the bad boy player. This was true for most of the book, but they did diverge a bit after some time. Nell is Dylan’s incredibly smart and driven roommate, who has never experienced really anything college had to offer. Torres is the team’s overly confident wide receiver, who is known for getting what he wants from a lot of girls. When he discovers Nell’s end-of-college bucket list, he decides to help her check off the items.

I really liked the two of them! No one compares to Dylan and Silas in my mind, but these two are a close second favorite. Torres managed to get Nell to open up and try new things, while she tried to…keep him interested in only one girl, I guess! Again, a lot of it was similar to book #2, where opposites are attracting and the main question is: can these two stick together even though they’re so different? As I said, it diverged away from that towards the halfway point.

One trope that has been bugging me lately is the whole “I don’t know what it is about this girl, but she’s so DIFFERENT and I want to change because of her.” I wish there was more build-up about WHY they like each other, instead of just throwing that card on the table. Saying how different she is doesn’t make me understand why you like her or why she makes you want to change. Cristina wrote a post recently about some of the tropes we get annoyed at in books, and wondering if we’re too critical of main characters. I definitely see this story as being “the average, plain girl who attracts the attention of the hot guy” (in this case he’s not paranormal, but it’s the same idea).

Torres did bug me for a while because he compared Nell to his ex-girlfriend a lot in the beginning (and of course that ended up being the source of drama towards the end of the book as well). There was some solid closure surrounding that and I was completely rooting for these two. There were a LOT of steamy scenes, as you’ve come to expect with this series.

I can’t rate this as high as my OTP Dylan/Silas, but it came pretty close. If you’re looking for new adult reads with not a lot of angst, a bit of football, and a great cast of characters – definitely read these!

 

rating reportplot premise three-half-stars characterssfour-stars writing style four-half-stars pacingfour-stars feels swoonsfour-half-stars addictionfour-stars

 

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