TEST
Good Girl Complex is a contemporary cross-class romance which is weighed down by its formula, and while the author gives an excellent view of her working-class hero, she doesn’t deliver on the heroine’s wealthy side of the class divide.
Mackenzie – Mac – Cabot is just one of the many filthy-rich brats who pass through Garnet College. At least, that’s what townie Cooper Hartley presumes. So it won’t matter if he uses her to get revenge on her boyfriend Preston, who threw his daddy’s money around to get Cooper fired. Cooper and his friends semi-drunkenly plot for Cooper to win Mac over and then drop Preston for him, whereupon he will laugh in both of their faces and stride off. Of course, he will fall in love with Mac and swear everyone to secrecy about his original intent. Of course this isn’t going to work.
If I had known this would be a ‘big secret’ book, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up, because it’s a trope which, like ‘secret baby’ or ‘shooting people before antibiotics’, almost never works for me. Sitting around and waiting for the formulaic revelation is a frustrating combination of uncomfortable and boring. I would love to read a secret reveal with an original spin, such as the characters talking to each other and working through it, but… this is not that book. At least Cooper and his friends debate the ethics of his plan, and they do put in the caveat that Cooper cannot initiate any seduction (Mac has to kiss him first, etc).
I’ll try to outline what might and might not work for other people for whom that specific plotline may not be a dealbreaker, or is perhaps even be desirable.
The beach town setting, and Garnet’s college/townie tensions are well developed. I liked the dynamics of Cooper’s ‘set’, a group of townies who would die for each other but also probably draw dicks on each other’s faces when they’re passed out. It’s a funny, authentic representation of immature new adults who have, of necessity, had each other’s backs since kindergarten. Evan, Cooper’s twin, with his self-destructive behavior and desperate faith in their user mom, caught my attention in spite of clearly being the hero of the inevitable series sequel. Cooper’s erstwhile hookup Heidi proves to be more than a one-dimensional vicious ex, and we realize that Cooper actually merits her bitter resentment. Cooper and Evan’s relationship with their uncle Levi is touching, and their mother is a realistic portrayal of an abusive parent, love-bombing interspersed with abandonment and exploitation.
Mac, by contrast, is not as well-drawn or as internally consistent. It felt as though the author has made Mac’s family horribly dysfunctional because she felt she had to do something to make us feel sorry for Little Miss Trust Fund. I don’t mind a messed up family – see Cooper’s mom – but while that level of neglect and trauma has profoundly impacted Cooper’s personality and ability to have a relationship, Mac seems completely unaffected by her toxic upbringing. She has a strong sense of self-worth despite stating she thinks her congressman father conceived her for voter appeal, and she demands fidelity and love despite living among the set where it’s expected for a husband to have a wife and a “Marilyn” (a mistress). Where and how did she develop these feelings?
In addition to Mac’s family money, she has made her own millions with an app called BoyfriendFails. While I don’t question that Mac could have hit it big on an app, she doesn’t spend anywhere near the time on it that she should given that she remains the CEO. Nor does she have any passion for tech (or gossip) which would explain her success. Additionally, in the book, she falls in love with and buys an old hotel. If she owns and is running an app, it’s unlikely that she’d have the liquidity to buy property (ad revenue, as AAR can sadly tell you, is not what the author seems to think it is). Let her have sold the app, or have her money come from real estate – something to be more consistent.
Overall, I’d say this is a solid New Adult book, and I desperately appreciate that it isn’t full of horrible angst and navel-gazing. There are some terrific secondary characters, and even the flatter ones like Mac’s roommate do more than just advance other people’s stories. Even Preston, the boyfriend, is interesting in his ability to maintain two faces (although Mac’s obliviousness to his duplicity is sort of moronic). Also, there is an adorable golden retriever. I just wish it hadn’t all been overshadowed by waiting for the ‘Hey, he did this on a bet!’ hammer to drop and the obligatory separation/grovel formula to play out.
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Grade: B
Book Type: New Adult
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 01/02/22
Publication Date: 02/2022
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
I'm a history geek and educator, and I've lived in five different countries in North America, Asia, and Europe. In addition to the usual subgenres, I'm partial to YA, Sci-fi/Fantasy, and graphic novels. I love to cook.
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I really enjoyed this one, TBH. It was interesting, the right level of soapy.
I just read the second one and hated it more than this one. Clearly I am not the intended reader!
Different strokes…
Absolutely. I’ve never been much of an NA reader and there are other things in these books that are just wrong for me personally. I can totally see how that isn’t true for others.
I think I am too old for Kennedy’s books.
I’m all for making it clear that the privileged can be horrible. But the close mindedness of the working class kids here was so vast–they dismiss every single kid from the school and the school itself in ways that were the situation reversed would be unforgivable. Cooper’s willingness to treat Mac, initially, and indeed the way he sees women is borderline Christian Gray. Yes, he learns by the end, but he’s a controlling dick. College here is presented as a thing only for rich kids and it doesn’t appear to have any benefit for them–what we see of education is a waste of the students’ time.
As someone who lives in the Carolina’s and who was just in Charleston, she doesn’t have any sense of that world–the language and the behaviors are all off. It reads as if someone just set their book in a world they don’t know and yet are happy to trash. Also, there’s no way Mac’s blog would have made that kind of money in the way she says. And how did she learn how to do construction if she’s a poor little rich girl whose had everything done for her?
I honestly thought this was the worst Kennedy book I’ve ever read.
I’m just sort of over the whole–to me, lazy–writing that rich people are inherently awful, that politicians are inherently crooked, and that all young women drop their panties for bad boys who, let’s be honest, probably do have chlamydia or genital warts from oral sex–I don’t see Cooper using a mouth dam!
But I don’t really like most NA because I’m a cranky old lady. I suspect I’d have loved this book were I 20 and looking to find joy in between the sheets.