The Dare by Elle Kennedy

Series: Briar U #4
Also in this Series: The Chase, The Risk, The Play
Main Leads: Conor Edwards, Taylor Marsh
Secondary Characters: Hunter Davenport, Mike Hollis, Summer DiLaurentis, Brenna Jensen, Sasha Lennox, Colin Fitzgerald, Demi Davis, Rupi Miller
Setting: United States, Massachusetts, Hastings
Genres: Romance, Contemporary, New Adult
Tropes: Friends to Lovers, Fake Dating, Overcoming Trauma, Past Trauma, Miscommunication
Release Date: June 16, 2020
Publisher: Elle Kennedy
Format: Audio, e-Book
Source: Purchased
Pages: 354
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College was supposed to be my chance to get over my ugly-duckling complex and spread my wings. Instead, I wound up in a sorority full of mean girls. I already have a hard time fitting in, so when my Kappa Chi sisters issue the challenge, I can’t say no.

The dare: seduce the hottest new hockey player in the junior class.

Conor Edwards is a regular at Greek Row parties…and in Greek Row sorority beds. He’s the one you fall for before you learn that guys like him don’t give girls like me a second glance. Except Mr. Popular throws me for a loop—rather than laughing in my face, he does me a solid by letting me take him upstairs to pretend we’re getting busy.

Even crazier, now he wants to keep pretending. Turns out Conor loves games, and he thinks it’s fun to pull the wool over my frenemies’ eyes.

But resisting his easy charm and surfer-boy hotness is darn near impossible. Though I’m realizing there’s much more to Conor’s story than his fan club can see.

And the longer this silly ruse goes on, the greater the danger of it all blowing up in my face.

It’s been a few years since I read this book and I guess I’m not the same person I was back then because I didn’t enjoy this book nearly as much as I did last time. As a big girl myself, I thought I would connect with Taylor and her issues more but I spent a good chunk of this book frustrated with her. With Conor. There was a lot of miscommunication, misunderstandings, and insecurities that bogged down my enjoyment of this book. I almost put it down twice and that’s a bummer because I was enjoying my re-read of the entire series. What’s funny is that while I didn’t drop this read, I did stop my re-read of the series.

I remembered Conor mostly from Hunter and Demi’s book but I didn’t remember much so going into this was like a re-introduction to Conor’s fine ass. I liked him. He wasn’t my favorite boy from this set of books, but I did like him. I liked that he was from So Cal but meh to him being from Huntington Beach. I liked how much Conor liked Taylor and how he tried hard to make sure she understood that she was beautiful to him. I also liked how much he respected and supported his teammates, especially Hunter. What I didn’t care for was his past and his ex-best friend. I thought that was the corniest part of the story. It was also a pretty shitty thing for him to do and then run from but at least he was ashamed about it and he made things right so that was something.

Taylor was a solid female lead and she had a lot of the same insecurities that I had growing up so I thought that I would connect with her character a lot more than I actually did this time around. The hot and cold attitude she had toward Conor whenever someone else triggered her insecurities got really annoying because it felt like Conor was paying for things that he had nothing to do with. I was glad that she made some real progress in getting over those insecurities though. I really enjoyed her scenes with not just Conor but with her best friend Sasha. Their friendship was pretty great and I loved how supportive Sasha was and even though Abigail came around in the end, I could have done without a redemption arc for her because she was an absolute shit for most of the book and I didn’t want to forgive her bitch ass.

Conor and Taylor’s romance was my favorite thing about this read. The way that Conor was down bad for Taylor was cute. The way that he wooed her, kept picking her up when her bully would try to bring her down had me soft for him. I loved the way that Taylor was with him, too. Right from the very beginning, they had great chemistry but the constant up and down made me roll my eyes more than once and don’t even get me started when they started to make decisions for the other because they knew best. Nothing pisses me off more than someone telling me how I’d feel in any moment…so when I see it happen in my books, I’m never a fan of it and there was a lot of that going on here.

While I wasn’t the biggest fan of this book overall, it does have its moments of shine. Taylor and Conor were a lot of fun when they were together and when they were with people that make them feel safe. They also come into their own and grow for the better so I didn’t absolutely hate this read but I can’t deny that all of the miscommunication and misunderstandings took its toll on me. So it wasn’t the best but it also wasn’t the worst read.

Rating

2.5 out of 5

The Briar U Series