The Do-Gooder
by Jessie L. Star
Synopsis:
A college girl tries to make up for her bad karma by doing one good deed for anyone willing to ask—a witty, sweet romance perfect for fans of Christina Lauren and Abbi Glines.
Lara Montgomery is no good. Having been scorned by her classmates since high school, she’s used to it. From where she’s sitting, the one with more notches on the bedpost has more fun anyway. At least, that’s what she tells herself.
Really, a small part of her hopes that her massive amounts of bad karma can be neutralized by wearing her Do-Gooder hat—that thing she does where she’ll complete one good deed for anyone who asks. And she does an amazing job at it, if she does say so herself. Still, there’s one thing she knows she can’t make better, no matter how many problems she solves for other people: on the night her brother died, she was off hooking up with his not-so-single best friend, Fletch.
It’s been three years since that night, and Fletch just wants her to let it go. To him, her persistence with the good deeds only serves to remind everyone in their small university town about what they did. As it is, they can’t help but get into a heated argument every time they run into each other on campus. And yet, neither of them can seem to stop that pesky electricity that runs between them whenever they get too close….
Review:
Originally I thought the premise of this story sounded pretty good–could be cute, definitely showed promise. I started the book, and initially wasn’t terribly crazy about Lara’s character. She’s just so darn prickly and jaded, it felt like an effort to get to know her. Fletch showed some promise, though, so I kept reading.
I’m not even sure what point I was at–30%? 40%?–when I suddenly realized that I really did care an awful lot about both Fletch and Lara. The more she revealed herself to the reader, the more sympathetic Lara became, and soon it started to feel like my life was going to be negatively affected if those two crazy kids couldn’t manage to end up together in the end. Seriously, there were multiple parts in that last 20% that nearly had me in tears.
I’m not sure how much of that all was in the original version, but I can absolutely say that I recommend the rewrite! I’m putting Ms. Star on my list of authors to watch 🙂
Rating: 4 stars / A-
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.
