A review by lmrivas54
The Hardest Fall by Ella Maise

4.0

Great story and great characters. This is a YA novel and is your typical football star meets excruciatingly shy girl. What made this story different was Zoe Clarke, the female protagonist. She was extremely shy, to the point that she won’t look at people in the eye, and when she’s in an uncomfortable situation, she starts babbling nonsense. She also gets very klutzy, and tends to run away embarrassed. Of course, when she meets with Dylan Reed, the university’s very well known wide receiver, she was dared to ask him for a kiss. Unfortunately, she went to look for him and found him in the bathroom peeing and with the evidence in his hands. Word vomit and klutziness ensued, then the running exit, and Dylan was delighted at this cute weirdo girl.

They have yearly sightings because she’s usually successful evading him, but when it happens, it’s the same weirdo show, except that the third time is a charm and Dylan ends up as her roommate. You will have to read the book to find how that happened. What ensues is a series of comical scenes where Zoe shows her weirdness in all of its cuteness. Dylan was captivated and so was I. She’s quirky, intelligent and very, very shy. She’s also a fiercely loyal friend to Jared and Kayla. She strives to develop a “buddy” relation with Dylan, fist bumps and all. The scene I loved best was when Dylan gets her a pizza. She’s fanatic about her pizza and doesn’t share. When one of Dylan’s friends tries to grab one piece, he gets his hand slapped and Zoe is holding the pizza box to her chest. No sharing at all LOL.

Zoe has many secrets and she’s not sharing them. The only ones in the know are her friends Jared and Kayla. Dylan suspects something strange but he’s so busy he doesn’t delve into the matter. He’s working very hard at his studies, at his football training and also as a bartender, to help cover expenses not covered by his scholarship, and send some money home to his parents. He has a strong work ethic and is not your typical football star manwhore. He doesn’t do the party, booze and hookups drill, but keeps his nose to the grind and will date a girl when he is interested, not when she stalks him. Zoe captivates him because she evades him, confuses him, amuses him, and helps when he needs it.

I loved the story and the characters, they were such a great couple and they had many zany and sweet moments together. The first part of the book was a little heavy reading because the author spent too much time on the characters minds and there was less action and dialogue. As the book progresses, the pace increased and the reading got easier. There’s no sex during the first part of the book, because Zoe is so shy that Dylan has to go extremely slow and Zoe has her secrets and her hangups. My problem was that once it started, it felt like it was a constant sex romp and I wanted more story, not sex scenes. However, it was a very yummy read, with some highly dramatic scenes.