After the Game by Abbi Glines

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Title: After the Game
Author: Abbi Glines
Series: The Field Party #3
Published by: Simon Pulse
Release Date: August 22nd 2017
Format: ebook
Pages: 352
Genres: Romance
Source: Library
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound
My rating:

Blurb:

Two years ago, Riley Young fled from Lawton, Alabama. After accusing the oldest Lawton son, Rhett, of rape, everyone called her a liar and she had no option but to leave. Now she’s back, but she’s not at Lawton High finishing up her senior year. She’s at home raising the little girl that no one believed was Rhett’s.

Rhett is off at college living the life he was afraid he’d lose with Riley’s accusation, so Riley agrees to move back to Lawton so she and her parents could take care of her grandmother, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. But the town still hasn’t forgotten their hate for her, and she hasn’t forgotten the way they turned on her when she needed them most.

When town golden boy Brady Higgens finds Riley and her daughter, Bryony, stranded on the side of the road in a storm, he pulls over and gives them a ride. Not because he cares about Riley, of course, but because of the kid.

But after the simple car ride, he begins to question everything he thought he knew. Could Brady believe Riley and risk losing everything?

My Review:

3.5 stars — Phew!  This one still had me wobbly on a few things, but the fact that I started reading it when I went to bed and stayed up until 4am to finish it speaks pretty strongly to it being compelling, donchathink?  😉  Seriously though, I could not put this one down.  So despite the little niggles, I still feel like this one was another hit for me.

Brady was (mostly) redeemed!!!  He was a bit more back to what I had expected from book one.  But he still didn’t completely work for me, despite being relieved that I generally liked who he was inside.  I loved how thoughtful he was, I loved how strong his conscience was and that he was unable to ignore it.  I loved that when he understood what the right thing to do was, he couldn’t rest until he did it.  The problem was that he was never completely convinced on some of the things that I feel he did wrong (particularly Ivy).  I wasn’t always impressed with how he thought of himself as a good guy, and didn’t recognize that he wasn’t *always* a good guy.  I don’t know if that makes sense.  But true good people can see their own flaws as well, in my opinion.  And on a similar Brady front, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about how he inevitably handled his family drama.  I felt like it was real and honest and even flawed.  But by the end of the book I was concerned that he never seemed to address his anger…he just kind of brushed over it.  That seemed like a missed opportunity to me.

I definitely fell for Riley…she wasn’t without her own flaws, but I felt a lot for her.  I empathized with what she went through, and how strong she was and what a positive outlook she had about life in general.  She was a bit of a contradiction though, because she was still very jaded and I’m not sure how well she would have healed if she hadn’t gone on this journey with Brady.  I loved how she loved Bryony though, and how she became her reason in the past as well as in the present — the changes she made, the reason she was convinced to try harder was Bryony.  Sometimes I wanted her lessons learned to be more…obvious?  I feel like she learned and grew, but sometimes I wanted it to be more prevalent, less subtle.  Probably not making sense.

The two of them were pretty adorable together once their friendship started turning into more, I definitely got some butterflies.

Can I just say that in general I really loved Riley’s parents??  They were very supportive and encouraging.  And I appreciated what we saw about how they all dealt with Grandmamma’s Alzheimer’s…I don’t have personal experience, but from my perspective it felt realistic and sensitive.

I was still a bit dismayed at the way many of the high school girls are represented, but I wasn’t expecting different after the first 2 books.  And hey, at least we got to see Riley, Willa and Maggie finally have girl friends with each other.

So the one thing that I am…conflicted about is how Riley’s rape was dealt with/addressed.  I 100% understand that everyone deals with these things in different ways, but I found the constant mention that Bryony made it all OK and that she would go through it again to get Bryony…odd.  But that’s probably b/c I can’t relate to that.  I think after the last book’s semi-preaching about “the evils of pot”, a small part of me was concerned that there was an underlying message about keeping babies after rape (ie pro life), but I think I’m paranoid and influenced by the last John Oliver I watched…  😛  I was also kind of let down with the apologies from people…and seriously, it’s a CRIME, I felt like it wasn’t treated seriously enough.  And the Rhett stuff at the end???  WTF?  I don’t know, I had a hard time accepting a lot of that.

Ohh!!!  I lied.  I have one more thing.  Is it just me, or was the drinking and driving in this book treated really lightly?  That is something I’m actually NOT okay with, and there are no lectures, no consequences, and I honestly don’t even think he thought he did anything wrong.  WTF?

So yeah.  This is an interesting series b/c it has so many things that bother me, but then it also really compels me and sucks me in.  CONFLICTED!!!!!  Ah well, at least my curiosity is satisfied now, and I can leave this series on a higher note.  It remains to be seen whether I’ll chance more conflicted feelings to read Nash’s story this summer…can’t decide.