A review by samanthasamie
The Deal by Elle Kennedy

lighthearted
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

Take a shot every time she looks down on a girl for existing, at least you’ll have a better time reading the book than I did. This book is riddled with misogyny and I don’t know why. She is the most ‘im not like other girls lol’ ‘I eat real food not just salad’ and it is unbearable. She loves to slut shame and make rude unnecessary comments about women she doesn’t know and they both love to make sweeping assumptions about women that are blatantly rude and down right stupid ‘women in sorority and blonde so much be vapid’. The literally reason he begins to show interest is cause she likes burgers and breaking bad unlike other girls??? Oh my god go outside, touch grass and gain perspective outside your own microcosm. They’re at an Ivy League university and yet and don’t have the basic critical thinking skills to think ‘Huh maybe a girl can get her hair bleached once a month AND enjoy Breaking Bad’

His main point and inturn hers, for the slut shaming is that the girls just want to sleep with him cause he’s popular. Babes HES CHOOSING TO SLEEP WITH THEM. Everyone is a consenting adult and he knows why they want to sleep with him and he continued to do so. So basically, gain a problem.

At one point it seemed like the author was going to link her slut shaming to jealousy that she can’t enjoy sex. But nope, any attempt at depth and insightfulness and a genuine character with a flaw is thrown out the window. 

Further more the first half of the book I think writes her trauma poorly. Instead of any suspense or mystery or basic inference, it’s non-existent so when she tells Graham there is no pay off, the audience is not surprised nor do they get insight or feeling the same way he does. I will say this definitely improves in the second half and made it more bearable. 

This leads to the point that the phrase ‘show not tell’ has never crossed the mind of this book. You know everything. Not a single thought is hidden, we hear every single piece of monologue and it’s annoying. Instead of having to engage my brain to read this book it read like a Wattpad book I would’ve read when I was 13.

While I can give some credit to the author choosing to take on some sensitive and difficult topics, I just don’t think they’re well integrated in the first half on the book and it just feels shoved in. It doesn’t really feel like either of them really grow that much or change as people fundamentally, i don’t care about these characters they offered me nothing new.

To clarify I’m not saying books have to be littered with meaning and metaphors but I am saying you are allowed to treat the reader as if they have a reading age above 12. 

I don’t understand the hype and I was really disappointed when I read this, I finished it even though I didn’t like it from very early on. 

What are the good points? I couldn’t tell you. Usually I can negate flaws cause I love the university trope but not here.
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