Best Elle Kennedy Books to Read (aka I read 20 of Elle Kennedy’s books so I can recommend the best three)

Full Disclosure, my basis for judgement: 

I haven’t read everything by Elle Kennedy, but I have read a LOT (maybe too much?) because I feel like even when sometimes the MMC can be a little interchangeable, Kennedy always delivers on the well-written spice, the just-enough-drama/trauma to keep things interesting and there's often actual emotional development. That said, before I delve into the whole thing, here are the 20 books this post refers to:

4/4 (or 5 I guess) of original Off-Campus Books: The Deal, The Mistake, The Score, The Goal. (I looked at the reviews and decided to skip the fifth The Legacy which wasn’t like a main story one I feel like but more of a catching up with them later like a really book-length epilogue)

4/4 of the Briar U Books: The Chase, The Risk, The Play, The Dare

3/3 of the Campus Diaries Books: The Graham Effect, The Dixon Rule, Charlie Method

5/10 of the Out of Uniform Books: Heartbreaker, Heat of Passion, Heat it Up, Heat of the Night Getting Hotter, Hotter Than Ever

1/3 of the Avalon Bay Books: Good Girl Complex (I was kind of done with the series after this one)

2/2 of the Prep Books: Misfit, Rogue (though in this case I actually WANTED a third)

2/2 WAGs Books: Good Boy and Stay

So... after reading 20 Elle Kennedy books, what do I think you should read?

Depends.

All of her books feature well-written sex scenes where they are (mostly) responsible, have conversations about consent and/or preferences and/or safety even while they're pushing against other less vanilla boundaries. Many of her characters are struggling with baggage (from online bullying to stalker ex-boyfriends to growing up on foster care, childhood guilt over a lost sibling and drug abuse/friends/significant others who have struggled with addiction). Kennedy does a good job with men who are immature but like mean well, and will grow into themselves (the college guy fantasy I guess, that you see the immaturity but believe they'll lose some of those rougher edges) and no, none of it is realistic. They don’t ALL win the Stanley cup but like... a lot of them are going to win big at life (they're going to own that bar, they were already super wealthy, etc.) in a way that is escapist fantasy fluff.

So, if that sounds like your cup of tea, read on:

If you like high smut ratio/low emotional depth: Basically if you don’t necessarily care about plot or character development? That’s her Out of Uniform books (Heart Breaker, Trouble Maker, Ladies Men, Sweet Talker): Because I didn’t review the individual books while I was reading them, I actually had forgotten an entire book. Because the thing is yes, one is divorced, one is a single mother, one just got dumped by her fiancee, but the sex, the type of risk-taking that's mostly physical and the emotional weight (that isn’t super there) all kind of blend together. They’re making out/having sex in closets and broken elevators, they’re hooking up usually right away, they have some commitment issues and sometimes they’re exploring voyeurism, multiple problems and yes,  they’re all like SEAL-level hotness, but they’re just too short and too quick to have any emotional depth (which is something I’d like in my romance).

If you want to understand why people are crazy about hockey romances, in particular college hockey romances: Off-Campus Diaries (the first two) >> Off-Campus (all but the four-novella The Legacy) >>>> Briar U. They can all be read as standalone, but basically, I feel like she became a better writer (at least for the things I care about like character development and progression and growth, especially in college-level boys). For me, The Graham Effect (where the main character is actually the daughter of the main characters from The Deal, but you don’t need to know that and it doesn’t really matter. They were portrayed as hot college kids who get together, have their HEA and then become mostly reasonable and crazy wealthy parents) and The Dixon Rule (characters introduced in The Graham Effect but it can be read as a standalone) are the two best. Graham Effect has nice spice, great character development for both the FMC (this daughter trying to find a place for herself in the hockey world while living in the shadow of this Stanley-Cup-winning father) and the MMC (some real family tragedy, but it was 95% played out in the past so just a little of it comes out at the end in a way that makes sense). The Dixon Rule is just a fun fake-dating, forced proximity, enemies-to-lovers, it’s all tropes all the time, but done in a fun way. As is common with Elle Kennedy there’s some third-act over the top drama in The Dixon Rule but it plays out well. I had trouble with The Charlie Method just because I felt like the emotional weight within the throuple didn’t completely make sense.

From there, I think the Off-Campus books just felt fresher? The Briar U novels were all spinoffs and though the books were fine, it just felt very... Marvel fourth phase, where you feel like you’ve seen it before?

Within the Off-Campus books, probably at least the first (The Deal) is worth reading and definitely the best -- the characters feel the most layered and believable and the emotional growth feels fairly genuine. Also, this is one of the few Kennedy books where college kids seem to have to worry about attending class and getting good grades? I felt like the second book (The Mistake) we’re just obsessing over her virginity a little too much and though the third is better, by the time you get the fourth (The Goal, where we’re in the afterschool special world of if you have an unprotected one night stand), things are just kind of meh.

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If you want chaotic high schoolers having too much sex? That’s Misfit and Rogue if you're okay with the fact that one of the side characters is trying to seduce two married teachers (this was kind of a dealbreaker for me and why it's not in the top three --I enjoyed the other characters but that story line was a bit much). I actually enjoyed these enough that I wish she had written a third (just so we could wrap up a couple of side characters). But it’s darker and gloomier than her Off-Campus/Briar U stuff and it’s a little more chaotic because instead of being immature and sometimes wealthy college kids, they’re REALLY immature and stupidly wealthy high school students who have way too much access to drugs and each other. There are also more character POVs than any of her other books, so it can be a LOT to follow, but it starts to make sense if you commit to both books (though one huge thread is only partially resolved by the end of the second).

If you had to pick just one? For me, the best of the twenty was The Graham Effect. Kennedy wrote it when she was already very established, knew what she was doing and had the Briar U characterizations all firmly in her head. If you read that one and don’t like it? Kennedy (and hockey romance) probably aren’t for you.

And if you like Graham Effect and The Dixon Rule, I’d check out The Deal (without feeling like you have to read the rest of the series if you don’t want to).

Ending thoughts: I’m a romance super fan and I think there’s almost nothing I’ve read by Elle Kennedy that I truly regret (like I don’t finish the book and think, I should have just done laundry -- even The Charlie Method, and the WAGs books, which just aren’t my cup of tea, weren’t bad, they’re just not the type of HEA I enjoy). That said, I do feel like the Out of Uniform ones are forgettable and some of the Briar U ones are interchangeable. I do think that a lot of the things the mistake/screw-up isn't that, that bad, but I feel as though she leans on the third-act miscommunication a little less often than some of the other big names. And her stuff is just... fluffy, escapist fun.