Good Girl Complex by Elle Kennedy: Book Review

New York Times best-selling author Elle Kennedy’s latest book, Good Girl Complex, is the first book in the Avalon Bay series. Released in February 2022 by St. Martin’s Griffin, this new adult romance introduces readers to the world of Avalon Bay, a beachfront university town in the southern United States. This book focuses on Mackenzie Cabot, a people pleaser from a wealthy family, and Copper Hartley, who has had to fight for what he wants his whole life. Will such a relationship work?

Synopsis from Goodreads

Mackenzie “Mac” Cabot is a people pleaser. Her demanding parents. Her prep school friends. Her long-time boyfriend. It’s exhausting, really, always following the rules. Unlike most twenty-year-olds, all she really wants to do is focus on growing her internet business, but first, she must get a college degree at her parents’ insistence. That means moving to the beachside town of Avalon Bay, a community made up of locals and the wealthy students of Garnet College.

Mac’s had plenty of practice suppressing her wilder impulses, but when she meets local bad boy Cooper Hartley, that ability is suddenly tested. Cooper is rough around the edges. Raw. Candid. A threat to her ordered existence. Their friendship soon becomes the realest thing in her life.

Despite his disdain for the trust-fund kids he sees coming and going from his town, Cooper soon realizes Mac isn’t just another rich clone and falls for her. Hard. But as Mac finally starts feeling accepted by Cooper and his friends, the secret he’s been keeping from her threatens the only place she’s ever felt at home. 

Pros

Good Girl Complex is easy to read.

Mac is an easy character to like. She does have some moments when she’s annoying, but she is only 20-years-old and thus naive.

Negatives

Did Evan have to be such a womanizer? And why wasn’t Bonnie around more?

While an easy read, it could have been 50-100 pages shorter. I understand the need for fleshing out the community, as this is an introduction to a new series. But there were a few places where the story lagged, and the pacing dropped off.

My Opinions

Good Girl Complex had me intrigued the moment I first learned about it. Why? Because I have always been a people pleaser. And I was curious how this would work in a romance novel, and I think this worked as well as I thought.

Cooper grew up in Avalon Bay and has always had issues with the college kids because of the way they treated the townies. Mac moves to town to attend college to please her parents and boyfriend. After a chance encounter, Cooper and Mac start spending time together and eventually start dating. What could go wrong? Other than Mac overhearing a conversation about her and learning more about the origins of her relationship with Cooper?

While set in a college town, there is a lot of underage drinking. I don’t just mean at house parties and bonfires, but even in the nearby bars and restaurants. This may have been something the author overlooked as she is Canadian (the drinking age is 19 in Ontario). She may have forgotten this while setting the book along the coast of the southern United States.

Overall, Good Girl Complex is a good read that needed a bit more editing. Coming in at around 370 pages, it could have easily been 50-100 pages shorter. It covers the first six months of Cooper and Mac’s relationship, which is fine. A few parts seemed to be dragged out more than needed, like the chapters where we meet Shelley, Cooper’s mom.

This is the first Elle Kennedy novel I have read, and I am sure that I will pick up more as time goes on.

Looking for some more books to read? Check out my other book reviews and my monthly reading wrap-ups.