By Gabrielle Kroeger

“Good Girl Complex” by Elle Kennedy (“The Deal”) takes place in a beachside town called Avalon Bay. Mackenzie “Mac” Cabot is an innocent rich girl who just wants to focus on building her app and growing her business. Her parents are forcing her to go to Garnet College, which is the last thing she wants to do.

Cooper Hartley is a local townie who hates the preppy rich kids who invade his town every school year. He gets in a fight with one of the “clones” as he calls them and comes up with a plan to get back at him. When Cooper meets Mac, he plans on using her to get back at the clones, but they soon become friends. Later on, their friendship turns into something more.

“Good Girl Complex” is in the new adult genre, which focuses on characters between the ages of 18 and 23. Many of Kennedy’s books are written for this genre, featuring college students as the main characters. This book is the perfect read for college students who want to see themselves in the characters.

This book features the “good girl/bad boy” trope, showing that Mac and Cooper come from very different backgrounds. Mac has never had an issue paying for anything in her life, where Cooper and his brother sometimes struggle to make ends meet. Kennedy did a great job having the characters discuss their differences and work through any issues they have.

Kennedy also does a good job building relationships between characters. When Mac starts hanging around Cooper and his friends more and more, they are not quick to warm up to her because of their distrust of all the other rich kids. Mac slowly builds a friendship with each of Cooper’s friends, and we see her struggle to fit in at times.

Throughout the novel, we see Mac struggling to make her parents happy, while also trying to make herself happy. Their expectations of her creates a lot of stress and unhappiness, but as she develops her relationship with Cooper, she works on not caring as much about what they think. She also deals with her ex-boyfriend, who is still trying to control her, despite her leaving him.

Kennedy has written many books in the new adult genre. Though all of them are written in their own unique way, “Good Girl Complex” has some parts that are a bit unoriginal. The book was enjoyable, but predictable at times. There are many books that take place in beachside towns, and they involve a townie falling in love with someone from out of town. There are also many books where the rich girl falls for the poor guy. It would have been nice if Kennedy had included more unique tropes in her novel.

“Good Girl Complex” is still a very sweet and enjoyable romance story. It is the first book in the “Avalon Bay” series. By the end of the book, you will be invested in Mac and Cooper’s story, as well as all the side characters. The second book, “Bad Girl Reputation”, comes out Oct. 4, 2022. The novel will focus on Cooper’s brother, Evan, someone we do not hear much about in the first book.

Image from Elle Kennedy via Instagram