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A review by lmrivas54
Boyfriend Bargain by Ilsa Madden-Mills
5.0
It’s YA, an angsty story, and written by Ms. Madden-Mills, what more can you ask for? I read this book in one day, neglecting housework and other duties. The story sucked me in from the beginning and I was just anxious to know how the story of Sugar and Zack develops. They were both broken with issues, and being together was not necessarily the solution to their problems.
Zack carries a very sad and weighty guilt that has been harming his hockey play. He’s trying desperately to get over the girl he loved and tragically lost during high school. When he unexpectedly finds Sugar in a frat party, he’s struck dumb by her resemblance to his lost love, but very soon he realizes that the resemblance is only skin deep. Sugar is very much her own woman, highly intelligent and driven, quirky, introverted and has a dry sense of humor. She makes Zack laugh and forget his troubles. Sugar’s only issues comes from a poor childhood, a product of the rejection of her father who didn’t want to take care of her and her mother. When she lost her mother at eleven years old, she suddenly found herself alone, and it was her mother’s best friend who took her in and finished raising her. Meanwhile, her father lived his life, wealthy, married and with two kids that Sugar never got to meet.
Sugar is determined to get into Vanderbilt University to study law because that is where her father and all his family went to. They thought she was white trash so she wants to prove them wrong. She bargains with Zack to accompany her to a luncheon at Vanderbilt for waitlisted candidates, to help her chances of acceptance. Zack is the captain of Hawthorne University’s hockey team, is the number one draft pick in the NHL, he has already been drafted to the Nashville Predators, but they are allowing him to finish the senior year. The dean at VU is a diehard fan of hockey, so using Zack as an influencer would improve Sugar’s chances of getting in.
So Zack and Sugar enter into some kind of negotiated relation but it soon turns into the yearning of something more. Zack realizes she’s the woman he wants, she gives him peace from his anxiety, she makes him laugh and she gets him. Sugar is the one who falls in love first but is uncertain all the time. She has a thing about feeling not enough, that comes from her father’s rejection. Even though they have a great relation, it’s as if she’s waiting for the hammer to fall and break their relation, or for Zack to tell her she’s not enough. For this reason, she doesn’t work very hard to keep things good between them but rather runs at the first sign of trouble. Their shenanigans, their bickering, their sexy times, it was all riveting and entertaining. There’s a rift between Zack and his younger brother Reece that adds another angsty level to the story. There’s also Julia the roommate, who seems to have had a fling with Zack’s roommate and best friend but they are denying it at all costs. All these tidbits make me wish and hope for sequels to this yummy YA world. I can’t wait!
Zack carries a very sad and weighty guilt that has been harming his hockey play. He’s trying desperately to get over the girl he loved and tragically lost during high school. When he unexpectedly finds Sugar in a frat party, he’s struck dumb by her resemblance to his lost love, but very soon he realizes that the resemblance is only skin deep. Sugar is very much her own woman, highly intelligent and driven, quirky, introverted and has a dry sense of humor. She makes Zack laugh and forget his troubles. Sugar’s only issues comes from a poor childhood, a product of the rejection of her father who didn’t want to take care of her and her mother. When she lost her mother at eleven years old, she suddenly found herself alone, and it was her mother’s best friend who took her in and finished raising her. Meanwhile, her father lived his life, wealthy, married and with two kids that Sugar never got to meet.
Sugar is determined to get into Vanderbilt University to study law because that is where her father and all his family went to. They thought she was white trash so she wants to prove them wrong. She bargains with Zack to accompany her to a luncheon at Vanderbilt for waitlisted candidates, to help her chances of acceptance. Zack is the captain of Hawthorne University’s hockey team, is the number one draft pick in the NHL, he has already been drafted to the Nashville Predators, but they are allowing him to finish the senior year. The dean at VU is a diehard fan of hockey, so using Zack as an influencer would improve Sugar’s chances of getting in.
So Zack and Sugar enter into some kind of negotiated relation but it soon turns into the yearning of something more. Zack realizes she’s the woman he wants, she gives him peace from his anxiety, she makes him laugh and she gets him. Sugar is the one who falls in love first but is uncertain all the time. She has a thing about feeling not enough, that comes from her father’s rejection. Even though they have a great relation, it’s as if she’s waiting for the hammer to fall and break their relation, or for Zack to tell her she’s not enough. For this reason, she doesn’t work very hard to keep things good between them but rather runs at the first sign of trouble. Their shenanigans, their bickering, their sexy times, it was all riveting and entertaining. There’s a rift between Zack and his younger brother Reece that adds another angsty level to the story. There’s also Julia the roommate, who seems to have had a fling with Zack’s roommate and best friend but they are denying it at all costs. All these tidbits make me wish and hope for sequels to this yummy YA world. I can’t wait!