An enemies-to-lovers academic romance with heat, heartbreak, and hope.
Theo Bennett has a perfect GPA, a color-coded planner, and zero time for distractions. Especially not the tattooed, late-to-everything disaster named Jace Maddox — who’s just been assigned as his semester project partner.
Jace doesn’t do rules. Or respect. Or show up on time. But beneath the sarcasm and smirks, Theo senses something else. A quiet sadness. A challenge he didn’t ask for — and can’t seem to ignore.
Forced to work together, they clash at every turn. Intellectual bickering turns into stolen glances. One kiss too many leaves them breathless. But when truth finally cuts deeper than pride, the only thing harder than falling… is admitting it.
Because love was never part of the assignment. But some things — the best things — can’t be graded.
This wasn’t bad. I liked the characters. I wish their relationship would have been developed more. When the third act came and Jace tried to get Theo back in his life I felt like their relationship was made out to be more than it was. They did a project together and hung out a good amount of times and they both could tell something was there between them but they never spoke about it so when the separation came it just seemed weird that their relationship was spoken about like it was this huge serious thing when it really wasn’t.
Also I wasn’t a fan of the writing. It was fine at first but then it started to bug me. Like for example: “Theo looked down at his hands. They weren’t clenched. They weren’t frozen. They just…were.” The writing was full of..not this, not that, just this. It became frustrating and hard to read after a while.
Still I may read some more by this author. This was very wholesome. They just kissed a few times. I was hoping for some spicy moments between them but it was very luke warm.
Pretty safe. They aren’t together at all until the very end but they hang out. They each are seen talking to someone by the other person and they get jealous but it’s nothing.
The story just doesn’t flow. It felt like I was missing stuff but when I went back a few paragraphs to re-read to see, it wasn’t me losing my mind. The story just jumped over things 🤷🏼♀️
What happens when Theo Bennett (who has a perfect GPA) is paired with Jace (who can hardly be bothered to attend class) for a class project? Theo becomes fascinated but Jace then disappears before the project is completed.