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kandisteiner's review against another edition
5.0
Cora. Cora, Cora, Cora. How I love thee.
All Lined Up was absolutely spectacular. I didn't think I could love any book by Carmack more than Losing It but I was so wrong. I am on the Carson train and I don't want to get off. Toot, toot, baby! ;)
I'm from the midwest (Oklahoma) so I completely identify with the Friday night lights thing. In my old hometown, the entire town shut down for Friday games. That was one of the things I loved most about this book - it wasn't just a romance, but a story about growing up with football and a dad who claimed it as a son more than his own daughter. There was heartache in this book from the very beginning and I knew it would be difficult at times with Dallas and Carson. But, would it be worth it?
So, I'm not a huge fan of reviews with synopsis recaps or spoilers, but what I will tell you about ALU is that it's insanely fun, sexy, and sweet. Dallas lets her emotions out dancing and Carson is fighting for that spot on the team he knows is his. There are exes involved, drama, rumors, the spotlight that goes along with being the coach's daughter, and of course - Dallas's firm rule of never dating a boy on her dad's football team.
But rules are meant to be broken, right?
I can't stress enough that this was such a fun read. I stayed up way too late reading because I couldn't put it down without seeing what happened next. And angst? Oh yes, it's here. I was so ready for Carson - long before Dallas, apparently lol.
I can't wait for the second book in the series. Silas actually seemed like an a-hole to me, but by the end of the book he was growing on me. I'm sure his story will be a fun one!
Cora Carmack never disappoints. If you're looking for a fun read with humor, angst, romance, and heartache - pick this one up. By the end, you'll have arrived home from a journey of discovery and love. 5 stars!
All Lined Up was absolutely spectacular. I didn't think I could love any book by Carmack more than Losing It but I was so wrong. I am on the Carson train and I don't want to get off. Toot, toot, baby! ;)
I'm from the midwest (Oklahoma) so I completely identify with the Friday night lights thing. In my old hometown, the entire town shut down for Friday games. That was one of the things I loved most about this book - it wasn't just a romance, but a story about growing up with football and a dad who claimed it as a son more than his own daughter. There was heartache in this book from the very beginning and I knew it would be difficult at times with Dallas and Carson. But, would it be worth it?
So, I'm not a huge fan of reviews with synopsis recaps or spoilers, but what I will tell you about ALU is that it's insanely fun, sexy, and sweet. Dallas lets her emotions out dancing and Carson is fighting for that spot on the team he knows is his. There are exes involved, drama, rumors, the spotlight that goes along with being the coach's daughter, and of course - Dallas's firm rule of never dating a boy on her dad's football team.
But rules are meant to be broken, right?
I can't stress enough that this was such a fun read. I stayed up way too late reading because I couldn't put it down without seeing what happened next. And angst? Oh yes, it's here. I was so ready for Carson - long before Dallas, apparently lol.
I can't wait for the second book in the series. Silas actually seemed like an a-hole to me, but by the end of the book he was growing on me. I'm sure his story will be a fun one!
Cora Carmack never disappoints. If you're looking for a fun read with humor, angst, romance, and heartache - pick this one up. By the end, you'll have arrived home from a journey of discovery and love. 5 stars!
lolasreviews's review against another edition
4.0
I grabbed my copy of this book on it's release day. I really like Cora her writing style and am always excited when she has a new book being released. Having just finished my current read I immediately delved into this book. It was fun being immerged into the world of Texas football, here in the Netherlands football isn't such a big thing, soccer is more popular and even that sport doesn't come close to how football is in Texas. It was just so different and it was fun to read about something so different from what I know. Although the actual football scenes didn't make much sense to me as I don't know anything about the sport and the only thing I understood was whether they won or lose, not how it happened.
The pace of All Lined Up is okay, it has some faster moments and some slower moment, but overal I wanted to keep reading it. Although it still took me some time to finish this book. I like the overal direction of the story, although there where a few scenes and events I didn't like. For example the beginning felt a bit off, Dallas is the quiet girl who doesn't date football players and after being hit on by one she deiced she's had enough and minutes later she's kissing a guy she just met, it just seemed a bit out-of-character. And the way their relationship developed was a bit weird at times. Although I did like them together. I also wished they talked some things through a bit more.
I did like the characters, just like in Cora Carmack her previous books the character feel real. They have problems and dreams. I kept routing for Dallas to finally follow her dream. The way she fought with her dad reminded me a bit of how I can talk with my mom, although we don't scream, sometimes it just seem our quarrels don't go anywhere just like with Dallas and her dad their arguments. They just seemed to say the same things everytime, not realising how much alike they actually are. Carson also is a great character, although I felt like we didn't get to know him as wel as Dallas. There just didn't seem to be much to him beside football and his character felt a bit flat sometimes. The side characters are nice as well and I am hoping to see more of them in future books in this series.
The romance was done well, although there was nothing special or unexpected. The way their relationship started at first almost insta-love/insta-lust and then calmed down for a while felt a bit weird as it seemed obvious they coudn't go to just being friends after the way they just started. To me it seemed more natural if they just had started out as friend at first and then have their romance develop.
To conclude: All Lined Up is a great New Adult book with the focus on football. It is pretty much your average New Adult book, but Cora Carmack her writing style and real character still make it feel like something more. How the romance developed felt a bit off to me, although i did like Dallas and Carson together.
The pace of All Lined Up is okay, it has some faster moments and some slower moment, but overal I wanted to keep reading it. Although it still took me some time to finish this book. I like the overal direction of the story, although there where a few scenes and events I didn't like. For example the beginning felt a bit off, Dallas is the quiet girl who doesn't date football players and after being hit on by one she deiced she's had enough and minutes later she's kissing a guy she just met, it just seemed a bit out-of-character. And the way their relationship developed was a bit weird at times. Although I did like them together. I also wished they talked some things through a bit more.
I did like the characters, just like in Cora Carmack her previous books the character feel real. They have problems and dreams. I kept routing for Dallas to finally follow her dream. The way she fought with her dad reminded me a bit of how I can talk with my mom, although we don't scream, sometimes it just seem our quarrels don't go anywhere just like with Dallas and her dad their arguments. They just seemed to say the same things everytime, not realising how much alike they actually are. Carson also is a great character, although I felt like we didn't get to know him as wel as Dallas. There just didn't seem to be much to him beside football and his character felt a bit flat sometimes. The side characters are nice as well and I am hoping to see more of them in future books in this series.
The romance was done well, although there was nothing special or unexpected. The way their relationship started at first almost insta-love/insta-lust and then calmed down for a while felt a bit weird as it seemed obvious they coudn't go to just being friends after the way they just started. To me it seemed more natural if they just had started out as friend at first and then have their romance develop.
To conclude: All Lined Up is a great New Adult book with the focus on football. It is pretty much your average New Adult book, but Cora Carmack her writing style and real character still make it feel like something more. How the romance developed felt a bit off to me, although i did like Dallas and Carson together.
shaunnah511's review
4.0
Wow! I really enjoyed this one! I wasn't really expecting to, because I didn't really like "Losing It" - Cora's more popular title. Overall, I found the characters here to be interesting and heartfelt and the story was sweet and fun. The sports element definitely added to the story, and I connected particularly well with Dallas (maybe due to my own relationship with my father and a different sport).
I'll definitely be continuing with this series.
I'll definitely be continuing with this series.
smitch29's review against another edition
4.0
3.5
This was a really solid read. I largely am not rating it higher just because it is nothing new and I didn't trip over my heels from being so in love with the story. It precisely met my expectations. I thought it would be a good, light read about two college kids with the blurb-mentioned conflicts. The plot never rose much further above the blurb, though, so it never got much more complex that that. It was a what you see is what you get kind of situation, which worked fine for this book. I plan to read the next one, because A) I'm in a book release drought and B) this book was entertaining enough that I have faith the next book will amuse me just the same.
This was a really solid read. I largely am not rating it higher just because it is nothing new and I didn't trip over my heels from being so in love with the story. It precisely met my expectations. I thought it would be a good, light read about two college kids with the blurb-mentioned conflicts. The plot never rose much further above the blurb, though, so it never got much more complex that that. It was a what you see is what you get kind of situation, which worked fine for this book. I plan to read the next one, because A) I'm in a book release drought and B) this book was entertaining enough that I have faith the next book will amuse me just the same.
jstanothermillenial's review against another edition
3.0
Enjoyable but nothing special for a sports Romance
bookishplansandthings's review against another edition
5.0
*** CAUTION: MAY CONTAINS SPOILERS***
(I really only insert that warning because I'm fairly new to reviewing books and sometimes when describing a book, I don't know when I'm saying too much, or which details to leave out... so, yes. Bare with me)
Oh gosh, this book. I did not expect to love it as much as I did (do?). It caught my eye because it's football related, and I'm a HUGE football junkie, so of course I want to read it. That and I heard really great things about the author, Cora Carmack, and after reading her book Losing It, last week, I wanted to give another book of hers a try, and boy, this did not disappoint.
I've been a new adult kick this new year, for some reason. This is the third I've read this year and I'm pretty proud of myself. I was hesitant to read anything in that category for fear it would be like soft porn, but so far, it hasn't been like that at all. All Lined up is about a college girl named Dallas Cole who has grow up around football her entire life. Her father is a legendary head coach in Texas and has an ex-boyfriend who was a star quarterback in high school, so football was the last thing she wanted to be a part of going into college. That is until she meets a guy named Carson McClain who knows nothing BUT football and whose main focus was becoming a football star as he was heading into college. Dallas pretty much has her future all planned out until Carson comes around and interrupts everything she had going. We go on to find out if the attraction they both obviously have to each other becomes more and if they are willing to risk losing it all to be with each other.
I loved this book because of how much we had in common. When I started college, I had my life planned out. Actually, when I was 12 I had my life planned out. I didn't go to the my top university choice because of my dad, so I settled for something closer to home. While Dallas is an only child, and I'm second of five children, I am the only girl and my relationship with my dad wasn't as strained as hers was with her dad, but I know I was the main one of my brothers to cause his grey hair to come in sooner than it was supposed to. But the most important detail of Dallas that I was able to completely comprehend is how she was able to fall in love with someone so unexpectedly but still be open to this abrupt change in her life. "And out of all the plans I've made for my life, falling in love was the one thing didn't envision, the only thing you can't really plan for." That pretty much put the cherry on top of a delicious sundae of a book.
Because I felt I was so close to this character, I was able to feel her emotions and even cry during those heartfelt moments with her dad, and she didn't have a mom growing up and neither did I (for the same reasons) and I am just crazy over this book right now, I feel like I am suffering from a book hangover, because I seriously don't want to start the sequel, "All Broke Down". After reading the synopsis, I'm hesitant in going with the story and not being able to relate to the newer characters. I loved this book, I really really REALLY do, so much so that I'm willing to look past the setting of the book (Texas?) I'm by no means a country girl, my heart is in the city, and that was a slight turn off in the beginning. But after getting to know Dallas, I didn't care. Oh! And she's a dancer! I'm not a professional dancer, but I dabbled in it all through college, but I knew my career wasn't going to be in dance, so I gave that up to major in Journalism/broadcasting. But dance is still near and dear to my heart. My dad even has multiple home videos of me dancing in diapers! To 80s music no less!
But anyway, I definitely recommend this book if you're interested in college football (thought it's not a huge factor) or if you're looking for a romantic, sweet, swoon-worthy contemporary new adult book.
(I really only insert that warning because I'm fairly new to reviewing books and sometimes when describing a book, I don't know when I'm saying too much, or which details to leave out... so, yes. Bare with me)
Oh gosh, this book. I did not expect to love it as much as I did (do?). It caught my eye because it's football related, and I'm a HUGE football junkie, so of course I want to read it. That and I heard really great things about the author, Cora Carmack, and after reading her book Losing It, last week, I wanted to give another book of hers a try, and boy, this did not disappoint.
I've been a new adult kick this new year, for some reason. This is the third I've read this year and I'm pretty proud of myself. I was hesitant to read anything in that category for fear it would be like soft porn, but so far, it hasn't been like that at all. All Lined up is about a college girl named Dallas Cole who has grow up around football her entire life. Her father is a legendary head coach in Texas and has an ex-boyfriend who was a star quarterback in high school, so football was the last thing she wanted to be a part of going into college. That is until she meets a guy named Carson McClain who knows nothing BUT football and whose main focus was becoming a football star as he was heading into college. Dallas pretty much has her future all planned out until Carson comes around and interrupts everything she had going. We go on to find out if the attraction they both obviously have to each other becomes more and if they are willing to risk losing it all to be with each other.
I loved this book because of how much we had in common. When I started college, I had my life planned out. Actually, when I was 12 I had my life planned out. I didn't go to the my top university choice because of my dad, so I settled for something closer to home. While Dallas is an only child, and I'm second of five children, I am the only girl and my relationship with my dad wasn't as strained as hers was with her dad, but I know I was the main one of my brothers to cause his grey hair to come in sooner than it was supposed to. But the most important detail of Dallas that I was able to completely comprehend is how she was able to fall in love with someone so unexpectedly but still be open to this abrupt change in her life. "And out of all the plans I've made for my life, falling in love was the one thing didn't envision, the only thing you can't really plan for." That pretty much put the cherry on top of a delicious sundae of a book.
Because I felt I was so close to this character, I was able to feel her emotions and even cry during those heartfelt moments with her dad, and she didn't have a mom growing up and neither did I (for the same reasons) and I am just crazy over this book right now, I feel like I am suffering from a book hangover, because I seriously don't want to start the sequel, "All Broke Down". After reading the synopsis, I'm hesitant in going with the story and not being able to relate to the newer characters. I loved this book, I really really REALLY do, so much so that I'm willing to look past the setting of the book (Texas?) I'm by no means a country girl, my heart is in the city, and that was a slight turn off in the beginning. But after getting to know Dallas, I didn't care. Oh! And she's a dancer! I'm not a professional dancer, but I dabbled in it all through college, but I knew my career wasn't going to be in dance, so I gave that up to major in Journalism/broadcasting. But dance is still near and dear to my heart. My dad even has multiple home videos of me dancing in diapers! To 80s music no less!
But anyway, I definitely recommend this book if you're interested in college football (thought it's not a huge factor) or if you're looking for a romantic, sweet, swoon-worthy contemporary new adult book.
elenajohansen's review against another edition
3.0
This was another "it looked halfway decent at a bag sale so I bought it for almost nothing" romance, and when I grabbed it off my shelf quite literally to have something safe to read in the bath--I don't bring my electronics in there!--I was like, "wait, I hate football, why did I get this?"
But it's not about football, really. Sure, one lead is on the team and the other lead's dad is the coach and late in the story there's an actual game as part of the narrative (which was thankfully short on strategy and eminently skimmable) but it's about sports and sports culture far more than it's actually about football. So the sports parts of it felt a lot like I was watching a halfway-decent movie about team-building and personal achievement, and the rest of the book felt like a slightly cheesy romance.
About that romance. It's rushed, pretty much everything about it is rushed except them banging in the most traditional sense, but they're definitely performing other sexual acts for each other in short order. And this is set in college, so fine, I get it. But they drop the "L" word pretty fast too.
All that being said, I did actually like their chemistry together. On her own, Dallas is a bit of a whiny brat who has obvious anger issues, and in other stories I might not like her as much, but a) she's clearly aware of at least some of her emotional shortcomings, and b) she grew up abandoned by her mom and raised by a goal-driven, emotionally distant dad, so you know, fair enough if she doesn't have herself totally figured out as a college freshman. It does make her skew young, but since part of her arc is about her striving for self-determination, I'll give her a pass on that. For Carson's part, on his own he's a bit of a boring workhorse, who has his nose to the grindstone as much as possible for both schoolwork and the football team (seriously, Dallas was right that if he kept working out so much he was going to injure himself!) and doesn't have much going on otherwise. But when the two of them are in a room together, sparks really do fly, and suddenly they're both fun people having fun.
The "forbidden" aspect of the romance plot felt a little weak. Bringing up Romeo and Juliet, even to reject its premise, is so obvious that I wish stories would stop doing it. The coach as an obstacle is somewhat believable, but making a big deal about Dallas' ex being the star quarterback at the beginning, only to have him suddenly and unceremoniously removed from the story partway through, through no action of the main characters, strikes me as a minor deus ex machina. I mean, if nothing the hero or heroine did had anything to do with those events, why include him? And it has the double whammy of opening the QB spot for Carson, who certainly has been putting in the work, but also didn't really "earn" the spot, it got emptied for other reasons and he was there. (Yes, there were presumably other people on their huge, 100+ team who could have been chosen, so in one sense he did earn that spot. But since we never met the others and Carson was only ever painted in competition with the ex, Carson's elevation didn't mean much to me.)
So overall, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would when I realized/remembered it was about football, but there were definite weaknesses in the story that kept it from being great. Not planning at the moment to go on with the series.
But it's not about football, really. Sure, one lead is on the team and the other lead's dad is the coach and late in the story there's an actual game as part of the narrative (which was thankfully short on strategy and eminently skimmable) but it's about sports and sports culture far more than it's actually about football. So the sports parts of it felt a lot like I was watching a halfway-decent movie about team-building and personal achievement, and the rest of the book felt like a slightly cheesy romance.
About that romance. It's rushed, pretty much everything about it is rushed except them banging in the most traditional sense, but they're definitely performing other sexual acts for each other in short order. And this is set in college, so fine, I get it. But they drop the "L" word pretty fast too.
All that being said, I did actually like their chemistry together. On her own, Dallas is a bit of a whiny brat who has obvious anger issues, and in other stories I might not like her as much, but a) she's clearly aware of at least some of her emotional shortcomings, and b) she grew up abandoned by her mom and raised by a goal-driven, emotionally distant dad, so you know, fair enough if she doesn't have herself totally figured out as a college freshman. It does make her skew young, but since part of her arc is about her striving for self-determination, I'll give her a pass on that. For Carson's part, on his own he's a bit of a boring workhorse, who has his nose to the grindstone as much as possible for both schoolwork and the football team (seriously, Dallas was right that if he kept working out so much he was going to injure himself!) and doesn't have much going on otherwise. But when the two of them are in a room together, sparks really do fly, and suddenly they're both fun people having fun.
The "forbidden" aspect of the romance plot felt a little weak. Bringing up Romeo and Juliet, even to reject its premise, is so obvious that I wish stories would stop doing it. The coach as an obstacle is somewhat believable, but making a big deal about Dallas' ex being the star quarterback at the beginning, only to have him suddenly and unceremoniously removed from the story partway through, through no action of the main characters, strikes me as a minor deus ex machina. I mean, if nothing the hero or heroine did had anything to do with those events, why include him? And it has the double whammy of opening the QB spot for Carson, who certainly has been putting in the work, but also didn't really "earn" the spot, it got emptied for other reasons and he was there. (Yes, there were presumably other people on their huge, 100+ team who could have been chosen, so in one sense he did earn that spot. But since we never met the others and Carson was only ever painted in competition with the ex, Carson's elevation didn't mean much to me.)
So overall, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would when I realized/remembered it was about football, but there were definite weaknesses in the story that kept it from being great. Not planning at the moment to go on with the series.
lizzie_reads_books's review against another edition
3.0
this book could have been great (college football) but this book was unrememberable (not bad just nothing to really report)
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