Why You'll Love This
A sorority dare, a hot hockey player playing along, and two people accidentally becoming the realest thing in each other's lives.
- Great if you want: fake dating with a heroine who earns her confidence slowly
- The experience: breezy and fast — reads in a single guilty afternoon
- The writing: Kennedy keeps banter sharp and emotional beats earned, not forced
- Skip if: you're fatigued by college hockey romance tropes
About This Book
What happens when a dare meant to humiliate you accidentally opens a door you never expected? That's the question at the heart of this Briar U installment, which pairs a self-doubting college student navigating toxic sorority politics with a charming hockey player who turns out to be far more complicated than his reputation suggests. The setup sounds like a classic enemies-to-lovers romp, but the emotional undercurrent runs deeper — this is really a story about learning to believe you deserve the things you want, romantic or otherwise.
Kennedy writes with the kind of breezy, sharp wit that makes 350 pages disappear in an afternoon, but she earns her emotional beats rather than manufacturing them. The banter is genuinely funny, the tension is well-paced, and the dual-perspective storytelling gives both leads enough interiority to feel like real people rather than archetypes. What separates this from similar campus romances is the care Kennedy takes with her heroine's insecurity — it's rendered honestly rather than as a quirky trait waiting to be fixed by the right guy. The result is warmer and more satisfying than the premise alone might suggest.
