Review: The Hook Up

The Hook Up by Kristen Callihan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.3 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

Tonight was obviously an ill-advised hook up for her. And I’m so screwed because it was the best thing that has ever happened to me. 

As soon as Anna and Drew see each other in class, they're hot for each other. Anna carries self-esteem issues from being overweight in highschool and social anxiety, so when she learns the tall good-looking guy that is sending tingles up her spine is the college's star quarterback, she wants nothing to do with that fish bowl. Drew doesn't know or understand fully all of Anna's issues and why she's being so stubborn about acting on their obvious chemistry but he senses deep down that she's The One, so while he'll go slower to earn her trust, he's all in. 

If only he was someone else. Something else. A regular guy. A nobody like me. But he’s not and never will be. When I think of the public scrutiny he, and by default anyone he’s with, endures, I want to hide away, run for the hills. 

The Hook Up was a New Adult story about a sparking chemistry couple in different college cliques that hotly delivered (did it ever!) on it's title, at least in the beginning. I said that Anna was stubborn about acting on their chemistry, don't worry, the stubbornness doesn't last long on the physical front. These two were hot little potatoes and bless Callihan and her open-door scenes in a contemporary romance (not surprising the original pub date on this). However, since I was enjoying those scenes so much, I grumpily felt like it was a little bit of a bait-and-switch when the second half lost some of that fervor in favor of a dragged out Anna and her issues with mini little tangents. I understand that the tangents were there to entice for the secondary characters that will star in later books in the series but too many distracted from the spicy main course. 

“Why won’t you let me kiss you, Anna?” 

I flew through the first half filled with hot, snappy, chemistry between Anna and Drew and liked how, told through alternating povs of both characters, we could see how much Drew liked Anna but was letting her lead and go at her pace, when emotionally it was hurting him because he wanted to share how much he liked her but was scared she'd run. These two had connections, Drew's parents died when he was in high-school, Anna's father left when she was young and has a mom that chases love with the wrong men, they've felt alone. Emotionally and personality wise they connected, and I felt it through their dialogue, it's the outside world that messes with them and Anna's fear of being scrutinized, which with Drew's popularity, is going to be a given occurrence. The second half has them fighting with misunderstanding where the other is coming from. That and how they're both coming into their own, Anna questioning what she wants to do with her life after she graduates and Drew realizing that he's done with the partying, helped to make this have a great New Adult feel. Their romance also had some of those sweet and angsty new adult giddy romance feelings. 

“I’ve missed you.”

The first half I was ready to give this five stars but the second half changed the pace on me so much, a decent amount of it dragging, that it couldn't stay there for me. Drew proclaims his feelings, Anna's “rules” wall crumbles, and we a get a third act break-up that simply gets resolved when Drew gets hurt during a game (people who don't like sportsball, never fear, mentions of football to more so introduce teammates for future books and only a brief look at his practice and even briefer scene of one of his games). The injury works to help them resolve their romantic relationship and then the last twenty percent was about Drew's mental health regarding his injury, it almost felt like a completely different book from how it started. We do get a two years later epilogue to check in on their HEA. A hot, new adult love first half that shouldn't be missed with a slower paced working it out second half, so maybe the best of both worlds for some readers.

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