The Hardest Fall by Ella Maise
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The first time you meet someone, you make eye contact. You smile, say hello. Should be simple, if you’re anyone but me. The first time I met Dylan Reed, I found myself making eye contact with a different part of his body. You see, I’m very good at being shy, not to mention extremely well-versed in rambling nonsense and, unfortunately, rather highly skilled at making a fool of myself in front of a guy I’m attracted to.
* * *
At the time, I knew nothing about him and thought none of what I said would matter since I’d never speak to him again. Turns out, I was very wrong. He was the star wide receiver of the football team, one of the few players expected to make it into the NFL, and I ended up seeing him all over campus.
* * *
I might have also propositioned him, run away from him, attacked him with a cooking utensil…and…uh, maybe I shouldn’t tell you all of it. It’s pretty normal stuff, things you’d expect…from me. Eventually, the time came when I couldn’t hide anymore—not that he’d have let me even if I tried.
* * *
Before now, he never knew I was secretly watching him. Now that we see each other every day, he knows when I have a hard time looking away. It doesn’t help that I’m not the most subtle person in the world either.
* * *
He smiles at me and tells me he finds me fascinating because of my quirks. I can’t even tell him that I think my heart beats differently whenever he’s around.
* * *
He thinks we’re going to be best friends. I think I have a big thing for him, and the more I get to know him, the more I don’t care that I’m not allowed to be his friend, let alone fall for him.
* * *
The thing is, that’s exactly what I’m doing—what we’re doing, I think.
Falling.
Hard.
The Hardest Fall
Great take on the new adult sports romance!
The following ratings are out of 5:
Narration: 🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧
Romance: 💙💚🖤❤️💜
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙
World building: 🌎🌍🌏🌎
Character development: ☺️🤬🥵😘
The heroine: Zoe – a shy college student. Zoe is awkward, uncoordinated and timid. She makes a fool out of herself more often than not, especially around men. She wants to be a professional photographer after college.
The Hero(s): Dylan Reed – a wide receiver for the college football team. Dylan was expected to be drafted into the NFL. He has charisma & confidence and wants to be a pro football player after college.
The Story: Zoe and Dylan meet a few times during their college years and each time, Zoe acted like a bit of a spaz. However, they end up sharing an apartment their last year and spend time talking and getting to know each other.
Zoe tells Dylan she has a boyfriend and Dylan just dumped his girlfriend after finding her with some of his teammates. Zoe has something going on with Mark, the football coach and that is how she got the apartment, Dylan also got the apartment through the coach, who tells Dylan not to mention it to his teammate Chris, who is the Coaches son.
I liked this book. There were pretty standard tropes (college sports hero and the nerdy girl, mysterious background and secrets) and I kept thinking I had read this one before though I hadn’t. I knew exactly what was going to happen when Dylan catches his girlfriend and I knew what was going on in the relationship between Zoe and the Coach as well. So I am not sure if the book just had parts that were reminiscent of other books or if I had somehow read it before and it got deleted from my read books.
I liked it quite a bit in audiobook format. Lidia Dornet read Zoe’s chapters and did a great job. The part of Dylan was read by Alexander Cendese and I love his deep voice. Though I don’t really like his “female” voice when he reads lines that Zoe says. But that doesn’t detract from the enjoyment.
These two characters become friends before they get involved. It is nice seeing the relationship develop. They talk a lot and spend quite a bit of time together. I also liked the supporting characters, especially Dylan’s football friends.
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