The Hook Up by Kristen Callihan

Game On, Book 1

Synopsis: The rules: no kissing on the mouth, no staying the night, no telling anyone, and above all… No falling in love

Anna Jones just wants to finish college and figure out her life. Falling for star quarterback Drew Baylor is certainly not on her to do list. Confident and charming, he lives in the limelight and is way too gorgeous for his own good. If only she could ignore his heated stares and stop thinking about doing hot and dirty things with him. Easy right?

Too bad he’s committed to making her break every rule…

Football has been good to Drew. It’s given him recognition, two National Championships, and the Heisman. But what he really craves is sexy yet prickly Anna Jones. Her cutting humor and blatant disregard for his fame turns him on like nothing else. But there’s one problem: she’s shut him down. Completely.

That is until a chance encounter leads to the hottest sex of their lives, along with the possibility of something great. Unfortunately, Anna wants it to remain a hook up. Now it’s up to Drew to tempt her with more: more sex, more satisfaction, more time with him. Until she’s truly hooked. It’s a good thing Drew knows all about winning.

All’s fair in love and football…Game on

Review: What mostly interested me in the summary of The Hook Up is the meeting between a regular student and the world of college football. True be told, being European I know next to nothing about football, but I’ve always been interested in stories surrounding it. Maybe because college football seems so different and way more grandiloquent than everything taking place in French universities. Therefore I liked the glimpse that the book offered in this world without being the main focus of the story. It is very well balanced and helps to make to have an interesting book for those who enjoy football but also to those who know nothing about it.

Thing is, in this book, football provides an interesting weight to Drew’s story. We clearly see how much important it is for him, how much it’s filling certain voids in his life, and these struggles are part of what makes him such an interesting and profound character in the end. I also enjoyed how he was conscious of himself, of his struggles, and of the state of his life. The author stayed very far from the jock cliché and it was a very nice touch. Plus it makes Drew way more likable than he would have been otherwise.

Anna was herself a very interesting heroine whom it was easy to relate to. She didn’t have the nicest uprising, without it being overly dramatic, and her ideas of love and herself were deeply jagged by it. Being a nobody during her teenage years didn’t make me wonder on her self-love, and seeing her mom date loser after loser didn’t help her faith in men and love either. It’s something that really makes her and that is noticeable from the very start from her wariness of Drew to the way she talks about her ex-relationships as supposedly “safe”. She holds herself back because of her fears and I think it’s something that a lot of people can easily relate to.

But what I liked the best in the book is the chemistry between Drew and Anna that was literally on fire. Their attraction is insane from the start and as we get to know them more properly it’s blatant how much their issues complete each others. Drew is afraid to lose everything, while the omnipresence of football in his life makes him somewhat distrustful about people’s intentions. Anna is herself terrified to not belong and to never be enough. With this it’s very nice to see how they work around their issues and beyond their initial attraction. Plus it’s a nice twist to have a male character who gets the importance of the relationship from the very start while the girl is the one afraid to commit and who doesn’t want to accept her own feelings. In the end it’s very interesting to see how they learn to overcome their fears and how their relationship evolves beyond simple attraction.

The Hook Up is a very nice book to read. The characters are real and compelling, their relationship exciting to witness, and the rhythm enticing. I was so caught up in Drew and Anna’s relationship that I almost read the whole book in one sitting and it’s exactly what I look for in a romance. I had never read anything by Kristen Callihan before this one but I’m definitively changing that !

5

Althea 

http://altheainwonderland.blogspot.fr

17 thoughts on “The Hook Up by Kristen Callihan

  1. Wow a five feather rating! This must be good. I love that the author branched out and wrote in a different genre. I really like her other series so I think this will be one that I will need to try as well.

  2. I’ve been seeing this one around quite a bit lately and everything I’ve read about it has been positive! That sometimes makes me nervous to pick a book up, worried I’ll be the one person who doesn’t care for it, but that’s not the case here. I can’t wait to read all about Drew and Anna!!!

  3. I got a complementary copy of this but I haven’t touched it yet, I have to be in a certain mood to read this kind of book. Thank you for a very insightful review, NA has a specific reputation and it usually makes me step back because of it. I do love her fantasy series so in terms of writing I’m sure that I will enjoy this at least

  4. Being English (and in particular living in Newcastle where football is god) I’m expected to love the game but have no interest in it whatsoever. Something which sadly extends to novels featuring it, I don’t suppose you’ll be surprised therefore when I say I can’t see my reading this any time soon.

  5. Like you, I’m a Euro girl and know next to nothing about football, but I did read a few books centered around it and really liked them. So perhaps I’d enjoy this too, the rest sounds quite lovely as well.

  6. I adore football 🙂 I am a huge college football fan and I love curling up on Saturdays and binging on college football. This sounds like a NA read that I would actually enjoy because it doesn’t seem to follow the dramatic tropes so worn out in NA. Thanks for the recommendation.

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