Cringeworthy with unresolved issues - read on KU
I'll agree with a few other reviewers that the last 25% or so is better than the rest. (Well, from 75%ish to 92%ish when the book ended.) Alyssa starts to suspect she's pregnant just before the 60% mark. It isn't confirmed until around 75%, but that isn't what changes the story.
I suppose Junior improved somewhere between 50-70%. A lot of what was bad was his attitude. At the beginning, he's arguing why being a football player is more important than being an actress. While it isn't surprising any football player would have this attitude, and especially one headed to the pros, it was rude that he would actually say it out loud. He did a number of crass, uncool things, but Alyssa fell for him anyway.
Beyond that, it just felt like a lot of the conversations were stilted. They seemed forced, not natural.
The book is very cliché. It absolutely does not stand out from any other college football romance other than it is below average. The author made no attempt to get any details right aside from some very basic things. By basic, I mean there were conversations in the locker room. They played in a stadium. She said what position a few players played and that college football starts in September. That was about the end of it. She missed a lot of opportunities to get game day routines right. This is picky, but players don't leave the stadium in jeans after a game. They're in suits, dress pants with school polos, or warm ups with the school name on them. They also spend pretty much the whole game day with the team, not running around campus meeting up with their girlfriends. But the biggest thing of all, the championship game isn't the first game after the last game of the regular season, and it isn't in November.
Mild spoilers concerning her dad: Her dad is a piece of work. He's one of those dads who doesn't care about his daughter beyond his image of being a good father and having the image of a supporting daughter. He's one of those coaches who cares more about winning than integrity. He's been Junior's idol since he was a child. Junior never has a moment where he thinks or says something along the lines of his worship of this guy is misplaced. He never has words with the coach defending Alyssa. He says one or two sentences defending their relationship, in a way. Alyssa never points out to Junior that it hurts her when Junior tells her about getting kudos from her dad because her dad never gives her any. It's the elephant in the room that never gets addressed in most ways. Alyssa and her dad do have a conversation about their relationship. One last irritating thing is her dad only coaches one year but the book doesn't say if he quit or was fired.
At least she doesn't get pregnant while using a million types of birth control as many fictional characters do. They were irresponsible. She says they were careful all but one time, but that wasn't true. Some of the sex scenes were on the happy side of average, but barely. But some of them were back in that category of feeling forced. They had a phone sex scene that was a bit unique.
I did love her best friend, Grant, but he was a stereotypical gay bff. His interactions with Junior were almost identical to at least two other books I've read.
Junior has one character flaw I don't think he grows out of. He lies to Alyssa about small things. Such as that he has been studying when he was at a party. He wasn't spending time with girls, at least. He lies to friends about meeting up with them when he has no intention of doing so more than once, I think. His argument is the friends will be partying too hard to notice. It doesn't paint him in a flattering light.
All in all, this book just wasn't well written. It didn't have grammatical errors, but the wording just wasn't good. I had to force myself to finish it. It is unusual for me to not finish a series, but I have no interest in reading anything else from this author. I'll be adding her to my very short list of authors to not ever read again. I read about a book a day, all on KU, and she'll be the 7th name on my list, so it's rare for me to do that. Even on KU, there is just so much better material available.