The Hook Up

I enjoyed this book quite a bit as I was reading it, I would recommend it to someone who was looking for a quick and cliché (but fun) read. Sometimes light and easy reads are just what you need after a dragging autobiography, a thriller that keeps you on your toes, or a dense 19th century romance that leaves you just emotionally and mentally drained.

This story checked a lot of boxes for me... I was invested in the characters... I truly wanted to know what happened next.. Side characters were likable and well written, more than a mere second thought. I loved Drew from the beginning to the end. He was a bit cliche but so was the entire book. I didn't mind.

Anna, she is so relatable in SOO many ways. She was not popular, she was a late show more bloomer, she knows who she is and she is okay with herself but she struggles with her perceived social identity. I have never witnessed someone so confident yet lack so much confidence. I found that refreshing and utterly relatable. Characters do not have to be a weak, wallowing heap of a human OR oozing confidence to the point of douchery.

I just couldn't bring myself to like her in the end. Her emotional ignorance is beyond incomprehensible for someone who is supposed to be confident, witty, and intelligent. We didn't go on an emotional journey with her, she didn't even go on one within herself. She was so closed off, to the point it made no sense. You think about this guy non stop but never asked yourself where this is going, or what you want from it... Talk about living life in the present... You want to ignore the fact that you want relationship, while ultimately sticking with only sex..... fine! but at least worry that he might leave you because you both want different things....worry about something..... anything.... but to be null and void of any thought, idea, or worry aside from "I like him" and "I like having sex with him".... for over 200 pages... egh. No matter who you are, the baggage you carry, or hang-ups you have, you would have more going on up there besides that. She was written with perfection but completely flatlined as soon as the story started.

This book transcends past the basic "Popular jock falls for the average, relatable girl" trope... AT FIRST... The beginning of the book left me filled with optimism as I read the fluid story progression and character progression. As the book went on, it began to feel forced, Iris's cheating boyfriend somehow compared to Drew? It was a cheap shot comparison and it missed the mark for me. Cue relationship trouble, insert generic doubts and story progression needed here.... The accident seemed a little it unnecessary to progression in the storyline to me as well..

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, solid 3.5. I had the need to figure out what happens next, I felt emotionally invested in these characters but as soon I set the book down, I was left lacking. It fell short for me. And most importantly, there was not a lot to set it apart from the average book in this genre. Unfortunately, It was utterly forgettable. And I'm really wishing it wasn't... I wanted nothing more than Drew to feel at home somewhere again and I needed Anna to realize finding happiness isn't found by making the right choice in choosing a degree, profession, or love, that can happen before, after, or during those choices, and apparently it can happen even if you don't make the choice at all.... AHEM procrastinator and queen of denial known as Anna.

Am I happy they both got what they needed from life? Sure, why not. Will I remember this book a year from now? No, probably not. Did I spend too much time on this review? Absolutely.. show less

Se avessi dovuto valutare questo libro per il suo esatto primo 50% sarebbe stato un Demolition Book Derby assicurato. Per fortuna dal 51% in poi la storia si riprende alla stra grande.
Come stavo dicendo, tutta la prima parte è un tira e molla di sesso. E basta. E onestamente anche no.
Okay, ci sta, perché la storia parte - almeno per uno dei due protagonisti - come una storia solo di sesso, ma non si può costruire un libro da 400 e passa pagine solo su questo.
Per fortuna entrambi i personaggi circa a metà del libro hanno un'evoluzione non indifferente e questo porta la storia ad un livello decisamente più alto.

Lasciata da parte la frenesia del togliersi i vestiti notiamo due personaggi molto profondi e molto ben caratterizzati. Anna show more è insicura, preda di un'autostima praticamente inesistente, che la condiziona in ogni occasione nei rapporti interpersonali. Drew si potrebbe pensare che sia il solito bad boy che insegue ciò che non può avere e invece fin dai primi capitoli dal suo pov ci accorgiamo di quanto questa idea sia sbagliata.
Ecco, parliamo di Drew. Parliamo di questo personaggio dalle infinite sfaccettature. Tra i due - ovviamente - è quello che mi è piaciuto di più. Anna è un personaggio standard, già visto e rivisto. La sua insicurezza fa anche sbuffare parecchio perché è prevedibile, si sa già come reagirà.

Drew no. Drew è un personaggio spezzato. Lui vive per il football, è grande e grosso, ma sa che non è tutto. Lui, che sente terribilmente la mancanza di quella famiglia che gli è stata strappata via troppo presto, lui che capisce a prima vista che quello che prova per Anna non è solo attrazione fisica.
Sì, io non amo gli insta-love, è risaputo, ma nel caso di Drew lo apprezzo perché non è la solita frittata.
Potrei parlarvi ore e ore di Drew, soprattutto perché nell'ultima parte è davvero stupendo. Ciò che prova è così intenso che è impossibile non entrare in empatia con lui.

I personaggi secondari sono appena accennati, ma va bene perché incuriosiscono abbastanza per stimolarti a voler leggere i volumi successivi.
La cosa che sicuramente ho apprezzato più di tutto è l'evoluzione della storia. Il punto di rottura degli equilibri è circa a metà, proprio quando finisce la fase conigli. Da lì c'è una crescita dei personaggi, una maturazione importante, che porta ad uno sviluppo che non avevo previsto e che mi è piaciuto davvero tanto.

Per quanto riguarda lo stile sicuramente non si può negare che la Kallihan sappia scrivere. Paturnie di Anna a parte, la lettura scorre meravigliosamente e le quattrocento e passa pagine si notano appena.
E poi è divertente. Cavolo, perché non ve l'ho detto prima? Questo libro è pieno di citazioni, di riferimenti, di una cultura di massa enorme. E il sarcasmo e l'ironia attraverso cui Anna e Drew interagiscono sono esilaranti. Davvero, il sorriso non ve lo toglie nessuno mentre leggete!

La Always Publishing ha fatto davvero un buon lavoro di traduzione con questo libro - anche se qualche refuso non manca, ma si perdona - e io non vedo l'ora di leggere la loro prossima produzione! show less

I really, really enjoyed this book. Okay,I’m lying. I loved this book. From the moment Anna laid eyes on Battle Baylor to chapter 5, I was officially hooked. I love Drew’s and Anna’s banter, their chemistry and I love how Drew knows that he is sexy and is wanted by many girls, lol. Drew is an eye candy who knows what he wants and he will not stop until he has Anna. Events leading up to that scene had me turning the pages, impatiently reading every word to see at what point, were they both going to give in.

Reading The Hook Up, was a fun read and I didn’t exactly know where Kristen was taking the story. I had a few guesses but was thrown off quite a few times. The pacing of the story was good. Kristen does a very good job at show more building anticipation and making the reader feel the needing heat between Anna and Baylor. You feel every emotion down to your very own core and at times it leave it breathless.

Anna had her insecurities, and at times I wanted to yell at her for allowing the past to disrupt the good she has with Drew Baylor. I wanted to beat her over the head and even when the inevitable happened, I mean for me reading it, I knew her insecurities were going to cause problems but I just didn’t know when and that was killing me because it was like ‘The calm before storm.’ And when the inevitable happened between Anna and Baylor, my heart still ached for her. It ached worse for Drew.

Battle Baylor, I love him, did I mention that? I want to put him my pocket and bring him out when needed, lol. Drew was written perfectly, his thoughts and feelings towards Anna were realistic and even down to his boys was believable.

Like a glass of whiskey, which gets smoother and simply better with age, its the same thing with The Hook up(Game on). The characters get more and more interesting, the setting and plot thickens, and its the kind of book that flushes you with many emotions. One minute your eagerly flipping through the pages as Anna and Drew get all hot and sexy. Next your heart is breaking and then a few pages later, you’re just sitting there as a warmness engulfs your insides and leaving you in a state of ‘aw, that’s cute’.

I’m very interested in Gray Grayson’s story. show less

Originally posted at The Bookaholic Cat

The Hook Up is the first book in the new Game On series by Kristen Callihan.

If I’m honest I didn’t know what to expect of The Hook Up. I love Callihan’s Darkest London series, but that is steampunk/historical paranormal romance, something completely different from the NA genre with which we have been bombarded lately. So many authors have made the leap from their usual genres to NA and have utterly failed. I was afraid this would be one of those cases. OMFG! I didn’t know how wrong I was. Callihan nailed the NA genre, nailed it!! This is the kind of NA I want to read. This is the kind of NA authors should aspire to write. I need to build a little altar to the amaziness (I know that’s not show more a word, I created it just for her) that is Kristen Callihan’s writing.

I don’t want to go into much detail in this review; The Hook Up is so good you should discover every little tidbit by yourself. I’m just going to give you five reasons why you should read The Hook Up.

1. Drew! He’s sex on a spoon, those are Anna’s words, not mine, but she was so right. He’s a dreamy hero, he knows what he wants and works hard until he gets it. Despite his fame and being seen as a football god, he is down to earth, a really swoon worthy hero. He is my new book boyfriend. He’s mine bitches! I’ll fight you for him.

2. Anna. She is sassy, smart, strong, but at the same time she is insecure and vulnerable. I think many women/girls can easily identify with her and with her inner dialogue, she was a great heroine.

3. The Smexy Factor. OMG! The chemistry between Drew and Anna is off the charts and their sexual tension sizzle the pages. The sex scenes are Hot! Hot! Hot! Take-a-cold-shower-now-hot and the best part is that they are not page fillers; they play an important role in helping build the relationship and intimacy between H/h.

4. The Dialogue. Callihan’s writing shines in the dialogue. The banter between the characters is one of the best I have read in a long time. It’s smart, witty and all around highly entertaining.

5. The Story. The Hook Up is more than boy meets girl, falls in love with girl and have the perfect HEA. The Hook Up’s story feels real, so much you can’t help but be invested in it. Another plus is that there is nothing predictable in it, Callihan was able to surprised me once or twice or… Yes, she’s that good.

I love The Hook Up so much I’m dying to get my hands on second book in this series, The Friend Zone. The Friend Zone will be Drew’s best friend, Gray Grayson’s story and it’ll be release next year.

I recommend The Hook Up to NA and contemporary romance fans. Trust me, I wasn’t a NA fan until now, now I’m a Callihan’s NA fan. show less

I would like to thank Kristin Callihan for granting me a copy of this e-ARC to read in exchange for an honest review. Though I received this e-book for free that in no way impacts my review.

Goodreads Blurb:
"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 show more 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.

New Adult/Contemporary Romance with a HEA - Recommended for readers 17 and older."

This book charmed me, which is not all that common for books involving sports and casual sex. But the characters are so well crafted that it is almost impossible to resist them. Drew seems to lead a charmed life, but he's suffered his own losses, and is nothing like one might expect of the star quarterback in a southern college. A quarterback being courted by numerous agents, and one everyone is speculating to be the first pick of the first draft when the time comes.

Anna is one of those rare southern women who simply couldn't care less about football. She studies hard, gets good grades, but has no real idea what she wants to do with her life. She's also something of a recluse, only going to campus parties when Iris, her roomie/bestfriend, drags her out. Otherwise Anna is content with small gatherings with friends. She hates making small talk, feeling like its a foreign language that she never learned. Of course most of this is tied to her past, where she was the tortured scapegoat in both middle- and high-school. While she's finally past all that, it seems that she's not as far past it as she'd hoped.

Which is why she struggles to understand how campus god Drew Baylor could be even remotely attracted to her. And Drew can't fathom what he could have possibly done to make this cute girl cut him off cold. Being the competitor he is, Drew can't resist a challenge. Plus, he really likes what he sees of Anna, not too mention her constant snappy retorts to his comments.

The dynamic between these two feels so realistic, as do the reasons for their issues. I imagine it is easier for women to understand Anna, because I think all women have experienced that feeling of not being good enough while growing up. It doesn't matter if they were considered invisible or if they were Homecoming Queen, every woman has moments of insecurity (and that's if they're lucky, as most have far more than random moments). So Ms. Callihan knocked the emotional aspect of this book deep into right field.

Sexually this book is primed and charged from the get-go. The tension between our two protagonists is overwhelming, and often feels as if it's about to leap off the page right in front of you. But thankfully the sex scenes, while steaming hot, never dipped into the tripe that used to be found in old romance novels. There were no horrible euphemisms for his cock, and no 'laving' to be found anywhere within these pages. What a relief to read sex scenes that were hot but not smutty or comical in the effort to use genteel language.

All the characters had different degrees of depth, and it was enjoyable to have secondary story-lines taking place along with the main story. It made the whole story that much more realistic, since everyone's lives don't come to a grinding halt when someone falls in love. No, they carry on with their own lives, having their own love affairs, break ups, getting or losing jobs - in short they continue to move forward right along with the protagonists. In doing so they offer nice breaks from the intensity of the main tale, as well as adding unforeseen dimensions to said tale. Certainly an entertain read, this book has a little something for everyone, and a lot of something for the protagonists. And I challenge a heterosexual woman not to fall for Drew, even just a little bit, as well as to find themselves in the position where they can resist cheering for Anna in places. Good luck beating that challenge ladies! show less

4.3 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

Tonight was obviously an ill-advised hook up for her. And I’m so screwed because it was the best thing that has ever happened to me.

As soon as Anna and Drew see each other in class, they're hot for each other. Anna carries self-esteem issues from being overweight in highschool and social anxiety, so when she learns the tall good-looking guy that is sending tingles up her spine is the college's star quarterback, she wants nothing to do with that fish bowl. Drew doesn't know or understand fully all of Anna's issues and why she's being so stubborn about acting on their obvious chemistry but he senses deep down that she's The show more One, so while he'll go slower to earn her trust, he's all in.

If only he was someone else. Something else. A regular guy. A nobody like me. But he’s not and never will be. When I think of the public scrutiny he, and by default anyone he’s with, endures, I want to hide away, run for the hills.

The Hook Up was a New Adult story about a sparking chemistry couple in different college cliques that hotly delivered (did it ever!) on it's title, at least in the beginning. I said that Anna was stubborn about acting on their chemistry, don't worry, the stubbornness doesn't last long on the physical front. These two were hot little potatoes and bless Callihan and her open-door scenes in a contemporary romance (not surprising the original pub date on this). However, since I was enjoying those scenes so much, I grumpily felt like it was a little bit of a bait-and-switch when the second half lost some of that fervor in favor of a dragged out Anna and her issues with mini little tangents. I understand that the tangents were there to entice for the secondary characters that will star in later books in the series but too many distracted from the spicy main course.

“Why won’t you let me kiss you, Anna?”

I flew through the first half filled with hot, snappy, chemistry between Anna and Drew and liked how, told through alternating povs of both characters, we could see how much Drew liked Anna but was letting her lead and go at her pace, when emotionally it was hurting him because he wanted to share how much he liked her but was scared she'd run. These two had connections, Drew's parents died when he was in high-school, Anna's father left when she was young and has a mom that chases love with the wrong men, they've felt alone. Emotionally and personality wise they connected, and I felt it through their dialogue, it's the outside world that messes with them and Anna's fear of being scrutinized, which with Drew's popularity, is going to be a given occurrence. The second half has them fighting with misunderstanding where the other is coming from. That and how they're both coming into their own, Anna questioning what she wants to do with her life after she graduates and Drew realizing that he's done with the partying, helped to make this have a great New Adult feel. Their romance also had some of those sweet and angsty new adult giddy romance feelings.

“I’ve missed you.”

The first half I was ready to give this five stars but the second half changed the pace on me so much, a decent amount of it dragging, that it couldn't stay there for me. Drew proclaims his feelings, Anna's “rules” wall crumbles, and we a get a third act break-up that simply gets resolved when Drew gets hurt during a game (people who don't like sportsball, never fear, mentions of football to more so introduce teammates for future books and only a brief look at his practice and even briefer scene of one of his games). The injury works to help them resolve their romantic relationship and then the last twenty percent was about Drew's mental health regarding his injury, it almost felt like a completely different book from how it started. We do get a two years later epilogue to check in on their HEA. A hot, new adult love first half that shouldn't be missed with a slower paced working it out second half, so maybe the best of both worlds for some readers. show less

I have to dissent to the glowing reviews of this book. While it's generally well written (not riddled with errors, etc.), the story just didn't work for me.

I have no problem with insta-love stories, but from the get go this couple's luv was just too much.

He gasped in class when he saw her for the first time. He could always tell when she was near. Their first two hook-ups were in public because they just could not stop themselves (though we learn this is completely out of character for both characters as we get to know them). Despite the obvious insta-love, the characters don't really communicate well, leading to the inevitable miscommunication then wedge between the couple to reach the HEA.

I understand where the author wanted to take show more me, but I just couldn't buy in. I think for me, if you're going to do this kind of meant for each other insta-love story, there almost has to be acknowledgement of otherworldly forces--fate, kismet, whatever--pushing--no demanding--this couple, who really don't have a lot in common except for intelligence and witty banter, to be together. (See Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie). show less