Contemporary/Reverse Harem/High school/Bully
304 Pages
Book #1 Hannaford Prep Series
Published by Independently Published (1st August 2019)
Purchase from | Amazon AU | Amazon US | Amazon UK |
My rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Actual rating of 3.75
Lips has survived a lot for her young age. She’s survived foster care, a school that breeds gang members and drug dealers like rabbits, and she’s survived the Jackal and become the Wolf. But she wants something more for her life than what is preordained for her. Hannaford Prep is going to give her that. If she’s survived everything that’s come before, surely she can survive the rich snobs at Hannaford. After gaining the unwanted attentions of the richest boy in school, being humiliated in front of her rock god idol, and pissing off the hottest guy in school, things are going to be anything but easy. Lips is now a target, and these rich kids know how to bring pain, and when every single junior guy wants what’s in her pants, except the three she’s attracted to, things will get harder and harder. The three guys that have her attention want nothing more than to destroy her, and she might just let them.
I’ve gone on a bit of a bully romance kick, and I’ve had this one sitting on my kindle for a while. Initially I found it a bit hard to get into and I honestly considered DNFing it. It’s so hard for me to get into the highschool mindset. These characters are like 15 but they’re acting 25 so it took a little bit for me to wrap my head around it all. After all I am nearly 36. I worked really hard at aging the characters up in my mind and that seemed to do the trick, but it did take a bit of work to get there.
Lips has been given a scholarship to Hannaford Prep, an esteemed prep school for the richest kids around. She’s anything but one of their peers. She comes from the bad side of the tracks and she’s done some awful things in her short years on this Earth. So she knows how to deal with trouble. The thing is, the kids at this school have the cruelty and the money to back up anything they want, and they won’t make her life easy. She’s nothing but trash to them, a mounty, good for a quick fuck and to be thrown in the gutter when they’re finished. She’s not worth anything, and they spend every waking moment making her aware of this fact. I didn’t mind Lips’ character, she’s a badass, and she’s done what she had to do to survive so she’s been through a lot. I just find it a little hard to get behind the fact that kids will have been exposed to or done things resulting in murder by the age of 15. I know it’s possible, and I know that the world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but it took a bit to convince myself. I like that she doesn’t back down from a fight and that we get to see her vulnerable side even though she doesn’t outwardly show it very often. The love interests are intriguing and I’m mostly interested in Harley, he seems like he’s from the same worlds as Lips and I’m keen to see their relationship develop. I won’t lie, I hated the female twin (who’s name has totally slipped my mind at the moment – Audrey?) she was underhanded and conniving and a downright bitch for no other reason than it’s ‘her job to protect the boys’, I get it, but still. I loved the fact that hers and Lips’ relationship did a 180 towards the end and that’s probably my favourite thing about the story if I’m honest. I’m keen to see what happens and how their friendship develops in book two.
The story itself is interesting enough, it’s more a character driven story than a plot driven story, and that’s fine. I do love character driven stories a lot. I’m interested to see what happens between the love interests and Lips in the following instalments and I’m keen for them to age up a bit as well, this would make it less weird for me haha. I’m wondering when we’re going to meet the Jackal properly and how it’s going to impact everything that Lips is trying to build for herself. This initial instalment was basically a set up for the world that Lips is heading into and the one that she’s trying to run from and I’m keen to learn more about both.
There’s not too much I can say about this one, if you’re into high school bully reverse harem, give it a go, though the bullying does get pretty full on, so be mindful of that if it’s something you struggle with. I’m looking forward to continuing with the series once I come off my no buy on the 1st of April.
Read Book. Repeat 