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My Review:Title: Rock Bottom Girl
Author: Lucy Score
Published by: Indie
Release Date: March 6, 2019
Format: Kindle Book
Pages: 532
Genres: Romantic Comedy, Sports Romance, Romance, Contemporary
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 Beat the Backlist Challenge, Lenoreo's COYER With Friends
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:
Blurb:
“You may be faking the relationship, but you’re not faking the orgasms.”
Downsized, broke, and dumped, 38-year-old Marley sneaks home to her childhood bedroom in the town she couldn’t wait to escape twenty years ago. Not much has changed in Culpepper. The cool kids are still cool. Now they just own car dealerships and live in McMansions next door. Oh, and the whole town is still talking about that Homecoming she ruined her senior year.
Desperate for a new start, Marley accepts a temporary teaching position. Can the girl banned from all future Culpepper High Homecomings keep the losing-est girls soccer team in school history from killing each other and prevent carpal tunnel in a bunch of phone-clutching gym class students?
Maybe with the help of Jake Weston, high school bad boy turned sexy good guy. When the school rumor mill sends Marley to the principal’s office to sign an ethics contract, the tattooed track coach, dog dad, and teacher of the year becomes her new fake boyfriend and alibi—for a price. The Deal: He’ll teach her how to coach if she teaches him how to be in a relationship.
Who knew a fake boyfriend could deliver such real orgasms? But it’s all temporary. The guy. The job. The team. There’s too much history. Rock bottom can’t turn into a foundation for happily ever after. Can it?
Warning: Story also includes a meet-puke, a bouffanted nemesis, a yard swan and donkey basketball, a teenage-orchestrated makeover, and a fake relationship that gets a little too real between the sheets.
4.5 stars — Well that was everything and a bowl of ice cream. Honestly? There were parts of this book that were like 10 stars, and then a few parts that were less, so I averaged and got to 4.5 rounded up…feel free to figure that one out.
But seriously. I can’t tell you how much some parts of this book fucking delighted me. I laughed and laughed, and I didn’t even care if anything was over the top, because it didn’t feel over the top in a shameless looking for laughs way, it just honestly did make me laugh. I’m not sure if that makes sense, but I have a very specific tolerance for these things, and this one did not trip that switch. I was just having so much fun, I wanted more and more and more. The cast of characters was delightful. They were quirky and crazy and endearing and PERFECT. I never talk about the secondary characters first, but honestly? They played such an integral role in Marley and Jake’s lives that you can’t NOT talk about them. I even appreciated Amie Jo in a weird way! I mean, wait what?
Marley was someone I simultaneously adored and wanted to smack on a frequent basis. I understood her to a degree, and I loved that through her we could see someone who internalized high school awfulness to the nth degree…and I guess I’m relieved that I didn’t do that. She focused so much on the negatives, that she completely glossed over everything good. She took FOREVER to figure things out, and I’m not sure I quite understand the depths of the kind of complex she must have had. That would be the part that was less for me, and prevented a full 5 stars. She just took slightly too long, and I felt for all the people who got hurt while she was focusing on the wrong things.
But on the other side of it, we have this story with all these amazing wins! We got to see how one person could make such a difference without even realizing it, and I loved every single step forward she had with both her team and the students (and even old nemesises). It was a super feel good story in that way. I loved how at the same time all of those people were teaching *her* things about herself, and helping her grow as a person…especially her girls.
And then there’s Jake. I loved that he was this seemingly god-like guy, but he was wholeheartedly not perfect…and not perfect in not great ways (especially the slobbiness). I love when characters get flaws to bring them down to earth and make them not too good to be true. Normally I like a 50-50 split with dual POV, but the off-balance worked really well in this story because it was mostly a growth story for Marley, but we still got to enjoy things from Jake’s side too. I couldn’t imagine this story without those occasional chapters from him. I adored him, and particularly adored the way he loved Marley. He was fun, caring, unapologetically overconfident…I don’t even know how to quantify him.
And they were fire together. They made me laugh, they gave me amazing chemistry, they just had me swooning over the way they fit with one another.
There were so many amazingly fun moments in this book that I’m never going to forget, and I can wholeheartedly see this book being added to my reread pile whenever I need a pick me up. I love it when a highly recommended book ends up actually being a match — it’s so fucking satisfying.
You had me at meet-puke.
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