Cute story, refreshing take on chick lit. ( )

What a lovely book!

First, a bit about the characters. Kat is our heroine. She’s never been “the smart one.” Her parents aren’t super supportive of her education goals, and constantly tell her she can just work for them at their family company. But Kat wants a career for herself; she just doesn’t know what career yet. She has always struggled in school, and it’s proving to be even more daunting now that she’s in college. This semester she is struggling with statistics. She’s been through several tutors, and they all seem to get frustrated with her and basically give up. The tutoring service is giving her one more chance with a new tutor, before she’s out on her own. What she doesn’t expect, is for that tutor, her last hope, to be her boyfriend’s best friend, Alec.

Alec is a nerdy-type. He is super smart, studies a ton, and of course wears glasses. But Alec is kind of cool too, in my opinion. He styles his hair in a retro pompadour à la Elvis or Danny Zuko (it even got him the nickname Zuk). But he’s much more than a smart student. He’s a loyal friend, a runner, and someone with a caring and compassionate heart. Right from the start you can tell how sweet Alec is. He really is a good guy, in every sense of the word.

“And Kat had this way about her, a semi-flighty quality, as if she constantly wobbled on the edge of a wave and could fall off at any moment. He felt the urge to reach out and steady her, just to keep her stable.”

While Alec is Kat’s boyfriend’s, Max, best friend, they’ve only met each other a couple of times; so they don’t really know each other all that well. Neither one thinks the other one likes them very much, which makes for an interesting dynamic come tutoring time. Kat is embarrassed about her need for a tutor, especially since she is failing the course. She asks Alec to keep their tutor sessions quiet, and not tell Max. Alec agrees.

I loved that this story was more than just two people falling in love. Kat’s struggle is probably something many people can relate too. She’s been told her whole life she is one way, and therefore believes that is all she is, and that those falsehoods are true. Her biggest insecurity is her intelligence. She puts up a front of a happy, carefree, chill girl, up for anything. But all she really wants is for someone to see her as smart. But she doesn’t believe she is smart herself, at least at the beginning.

I was so proud of her when she finally took her success into her own hands. While Alec had an impact on how she saw herself, she had to believe it herself before it made a real difference in her life. He cared about Kat in a different way than any of her past boyfriends. He saw past that façade she put up to protect herself from getting hurt. And finally with the right encouragement from Alec, she was able to finally start seeing herself as more than just a pretty face.

Our hero wasn’t perfect! And I loved it! Alec didn’t always say the right thing, and he inadvertently hurt Kat’s feelings. But he learned from his mistakes, and worked on himself. Once he finally realized that he couldn’t fix everything, and not everything needs to be ‘fixed’, he was able to be the best partner to Kat he could be.

The humor was perfect! It snuck up on me, and had me laughing out loud. It was natural, and didn’t feel forced at all.

“She imagined this would be an amazing scene in a movie, where he whispered in a tortured voice, Kat, I want you. I’ve always wanted you. Let’s retreat to my boudoir and consummate our mutual attraction…”

I definitely felt a kinship to Kat. Not only on being put into a box, whether others put you there or you put yourself there, but on simpler things too. Like when it came to her view on running.

“I’d planned to go for a run. Wanna come?” Kat shot her a look out of the corner of her eye. “You know that question gets a perma-no from me.”

If you are looking for something different, with a heroine and hero who struggle with relatable issues, then definitely pick this book up. It still has just enough humor and light-heartedness, to make it a fun, but intelligent, read!

Originally posted on Books for the Living. ( )

Like New Adult books I’ve enjoyed, Erickson’s Make it Count tells a story with a realistic college setting with realistic characters readers can relate to. There’s nothing too dramatic in this book, even though there are a range of emotions and some heated moments.

Erickson’s writing is has a refreshing, lighthearted feel to it for most of the book. It made for an inviting read that kept me wanting to come back to the book more and more. As the story went along, and the characters developed along with the plot, it was hard to put down. I thought the author source of conflict (the main conflict and the minor ones) were great and I’m happy to read a fresh take on what can be a major source of conflict in a college age book.

I really enjoyed the cast of characters, the main characters and the side characters who I feel we’ll see develop even more in the next Bowler University books. What Erickson did with Kat’s character really made the book work for me. She might be one of my favorite characters that I’ve read recently. I also liked Danica a lot and hope she gets a bigger role in the future.

Soon up for me is [b:Make it Right|20705735|Make it Right (Bowler University, #2)|Megan Erickson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1407109296s/20705735.jpg|40025608], and I have a feeling I’ll be coming back to Erickson’s books for a long time. Make it Count was definitely a great reading choice for me. ( )

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: It was refreshing to finally read about a normal girl falling in love with a normal boy. This story was beautifully done and so easy to relate to. I would highly recommend it to all new adult fans out there looking for something a little different from your normal contemporary romance novel.

Opening Sentence: KAT CHEWED ON her pen and studied her tutor’s bent head.

The Review:

Kat Caruso has never had a hard time getting what she wants in life. She has always been a pretty girl and even though school didn’t come easy she always seem to find a way to get by. But she is now in her sophomore year at Bowler University and she is failing statistics. She is already on academic probation and if she fails anymore classes she will be kicked out of school. Kat’s problem isn’t that she’s not smart she just has a really hard time concentrating and sometimes she gets things confused. For a long time she has been able to hide how much she struggles, but she is going to have to get help if she expects to continue her education. When her new tutor shows up for their first session its none other than her boyfriend’s gorgeous best friend Alex Stone.

Alex has always been smart and he is going to school to be a lawyer or judge someday. Girls on the other hand haven’t been as easy for him. He had a serious girlfriend in high school that he dated for years, but last summer she cheated on him. He hasn’t really been interested in anyone else until recently. Kat is beautiful, funny, and smart, but she also happens to be his childhood best friend’s girlfriend. Is a girl worth throwing away a relationship he has spent his whole life building?

Kat is a beautiful girl that grew up in a happy and loving home. All her life she has felt like she was stupid because school was always difficult for her. Socially she has never had any type of problem and one of the only reasons she made it through high school was because she got people to help her. But college is a whole other thing and she finds that she is really struggling to pass her classes. She soon finds out that she has a learning disability and I found that so interesting. I haven’t read many books where the main character has a learning disability and being inside Kat’s head was eye opening to me. She is this normal girl that has something so many people in real life have to deal with on a daily basis, and that made her really easy for me to connect with her. I loved that even though she has difficulties she doesn’t let that stop her from living her dreams of getting a college degree. She was an amazing character that was very inspirational and someone you can look up to!

Alex was such a sweet guy and I loved that he was nerdy. Honestly, in real life Alex is the type of guy I would want to date. I will admit that I have a thing for bad boys in books but when it comes to my actual personal life, I would never date 99% of the boys I love in books. But Alex has so many qualities that make him someone you would really want to have a serious relationship with. He is smart, kind, and thoughtful. But he also has his faults like all great characters do and that just made him even cuter to me. It was refreshing to finally read a book that had a normal boy and normal girl fall in love. Yes, they have their problems but they were the type of problems everyday people deal with all the time. I loved Alex and I am so glad I got to read his story!

Make it Count was a fun realistic story that was so easy to connect with. The best thing about it was that it dealt with issues that are very common and can happen to anyone. So many contemporary books I read just cover the issues that are rare and only happen to a very small percentage of people. It was nice to finally read about normal characters that have a fairly normal life, but the story was in no way boring. The romance was adorable and very sexy. There was some serious sexual tension that slowly brewed over time. The plot had a few twists that I wasn’t quite expecting and in all honestly the story was just fun. There was great humor and lots of great drama to keep you interested. This is the first book in the series and I can’t wait to read the next book. I would highly recommend this story to anyone that is looking for a fun and sexy new adult book that is easy to relate to.

Notable Scene:

He cupped the back of her head with one hand while his other fisted her shirt at her lower back. But what gave him breath again was his lips on hers. They were soft and wet and Oh God, she’d opened her mouth. Her tongue slipped between his teeth and swiped his eagerly and then he kind of lost it.

He plunged into her at the same time he stumbled forward with a growl. Her back hit the wall, but she didn’t protest. In fact, she seemed to like it. She moaned and gripped his shoulders, pulling him closer, her fingernails digging through the thin fabric of his T-shirt.

She didn’t accept his kiss . She fought it. That’s what it felt like. A fight for power. Their teeth clacked and lips mashed and tongues clashed.

A tremor ran from the back of his neck all the way down to his heels, because this wasn’t the same dynamic they shared over a statistics book. Alec was no longer the teacher and Kat the docile student. This, her tongue tangled with his , her full breasts pressed against his chest and the scent of her citrus shampoo surrounding him in a light brown curtain . . . this was Kat’s world.

It was the single hottest moment of his life.

FTC Advisory: I purchased my own copy of Make it Count. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )