The Chase (Briar U, #1) by Elle Kennedy Series: Briar U #1
Published by Elle Kennedy Inc. on April 4, 2024
Genres: Romance
Pages: 374 •Format: E-Book •Source: Kindle Unlimited
Goodreads
Everyone says opposites attract. And they must be right, because there’s no logical reason why I’m so drawn to Colin Fitzgerald. I don’t usually go for tattoo-covered, video-gaming, hockey-playing nerd-jocks who think I’m flighty and superficial. His narrow view of me is the first strike against him. It doesn’t help that he’s buddy-buddy with my brother.
And that his best friend has a crush on me.
And that I just moved in with them.
Oh, did I not mention we’re roommates?
I suppose it doesn’t matter. Fitzy has made it clear he’s not interested in me, even though the sparks between us are liable to burn our house down. I’m not the kind of girl who chases after a man, though, and I’m not about to start. I’ve got my hands full dealing with a new school, a sleazy professor, and an uncertain future. So if my sexy brooding roomie wises up and realizes what he’s missing?
He knows where to find me.
I loved the original Off Campus series by Elle Kennedy, so I was excited to find there was a spinoff with some of the younger, background hockey players, the Briar U series. While The Chase was an easy, addictive read, I found myself cringing a lot while reading- it just did NOT age well.
The Chase focuses on Fitzy, a hockey player who’s also a gamer and tech wiz in his spare time who’s been mentioned throughout the original series quite a bit, and Summer, Dean’s younger sister. It was a smart idea to focus on characters who were relatively well known from the original series to get readers acclimated to this new spin off. However, I cannot stand the way Summer was written about 70% of the time. Look, I have read Kennedy’s original series so I know she doesn’t write vapid girls with cringe-worthy dialogue, but that’s exactly what I felt like I got from Summer’s narration. I checked to see when it was written and was surprised to see 2018, because it honestly felt like it was written in the early aughts. From her “inner Selena Gomez” internal dialogue to her constant label name dropping…it felt like the way Summer was written was in direct contrast to the “I’m more than just a pretty rich party girl” arc that the story was going for. Also, I was MAJORLY side-eyeing the Chanel discussion she had in one of her classes.
Fitz was fine. I thought his side project of building an online RPG was interesting, as was his journey navigating a job in the video game/tech world. I didn’t love how conflict avoidant he was (even though he has a “reason” for it) and the way he danced around Summer was pretty frustrating. I wouldn’t say they didn’t have chemistry, but when I think back to the chemistry between some of the couples in the original series it felt a little flat.
Honestly, there was a lot more going on in this book aside from Summer and Fitz’s romance, which was probably for the best. You can tell the author was really trying to establish the new world and cast of characters in this one. There’s a lot more characters I’m interested in seeing more of (Brenna, Jake, Ben) and I hope their character’s voices are less grating to me than Summer’s. I also hope to see less of some of the college stereotypes, girl on girl hate (there’s literally a catfight in a bar), over the top “bro-ishness”…IDK I feel like the original series was more progressive than this? (Or maybe it’s just been a few years and I’ve forgotten…?)
Overall: I’m cautiously optimistic for the next book in the series (Brenna’s and Jake’s and boy did they have a lot of tension in this one!) and really hoping this was a one-off with the things that didn’t work for me.
Leave a Reply