Maren’s Reads's Reviews > Bad Girl Reputation

I am a huge Elle Kennedy fan and loved her Off Campus and Brier U series, as well as book one of this Avalon Bay series, Good Girl Complex. While I also enjoyed Bad Girl Reputation, it is not my favorite of hers.

Let’s start her with what I loved about this book. I have such a soft spot for small town settings and I love the world Kennedy has created here in Avalon Bay. The supporting characters are a lot of fun and add so much to the overall story. She also does a great job at developing her characters, and you can easily envision them existing off the page as well as on.

Now to the negative. This book relies heavily on my least favorite trope, miscommunication, to propel the story forth both in the past, before we existed in this world with them, and then in the present as they navigate being in one another’s lives again. This left me feeling frustrated with the characters and their lack of mature communication for most of the story.

I listened to this one on audio and while I loved the narration for Good Girl Complex, the narrators of Bad Girl Reputation, along with the echoing quality present in NetGalley’s ALCs, detracted a bit from my overall impression. I would recommend reading the physical or ebook over the audiobook.

While this one fell a bit flat for me, I am really enjoying this series as a whole and hope she continues on with it.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC and ALC of this book in exchange for my honest review.