Review: Playing the Player by Lisa Brown Roberts

Playing the Player

by Lisa Brown Roberts

Summary:

The Good Girl Vs. The Player
Round one begins...

Trina Clemons needed the money. Why else would she - the most organized, prepared student in school - spend the summer as a nanny and partner with the biggest slacker ever? Now she's ready to tackle nannyhood with her big binder of research and schedules. Just don't ask her about the secret job of "fixing" the bad habits of a certain high school player...

Slade Edmunds prefers easy hook-ups, and Trina is definitely not his type. She's all structure and rules, while Slade wants to just have fun. Fortunately, Trina has no idea about the bet Slade made with his best friend that he can totally get her to unwind by the end of summer...

Then the weirdest thing happens. There's chemistry. A lot of it. 

But nothing gets between a boy and a girl like a big, fat secret...

(cover image and summary lifted from Goodreads)

Series: Standalone
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Expected Publication date: September 14, 2015
Source/Format: Review e-copy from the publisher via Netgalley
Pre-order links: Amazon | Barnes &Noble | iTunes | Kobo | Book Depository
Content Warning: mild exchange of cuss words
My Rating: ★★★★☆

My Thoughts:

The girl is uptight. The boy is laidback. They both think that they are not each other’s type. But then when they are together, the chemistry is inevitable. The girl is in it because of the extra pay. The boy is in it because of a bet. Can a relationship bloom when it’s built on lies? Sounds pretty much all the other romance books that you’ve read already, right? Uhmm, yes... and no.

I consider myself a very hard to please reader of purely romance books. Usually, I would only read romance that goes with elements of fantasy or dystopia or adventure. This is because I started reading romance books at a very young age of nine years old so I thought that by now I am already immune to the charms (a.k.a. the formulaic plot) of a purely swoony feels book. I have never been so wrong. I was surprisingly seduced by this book that I’ve devoured it in one sitting.

Maybe it was because of the unconventional characterization of our protagonists. Trina, although described as a stickler for rules and schedules wears her hair short and wears swimsuits and shorts. Normally, uptight girls in books are stereotyped as long-haired and wears long skirts or long jeans only. Slade is also not your typical brooding YA guy. He is a person who is easy to read. He works to win the love of Trina. There is this one time when he reaches out to Trina’s bestfriend to get more inside info on Trina. He likes country music. And his wingman and bestfriend, Alex, is gay. Talk about a bit of a character diversity here.

Or maybe it was because of the writing style. The book is written in the shifitng point of view of our main characters. So we both get to know how each other’s feelings. Each chapter includes the day the story happens, so you don’t lose track of their schedules. Like for example, MWF's are for nannying duties. And Tuesdays are for Trina’s swim lessons.

Then, maybe it was because of the adorable kids, Gillian and Max, that the two of our protagonists are babysitting. The two kids have well buit-up characters as well. And there seems to be an uncanny mirroring of these two kids with our protagonists. Gillian is free-spirited like Slade and Max is reserved like Trina.

Heck, maybe it was because of the predictability of it all. We all love a good plot twist but sometimes, it’s just satisfying to read something that you’ll be able to foretell what will happen and to see what you foretold unfold on the pages you’re reading.

There may be some nanny trips that are too extreme and I found hard to believe why the kids’ parents agreed to those. There are exchanges of love letters (oh yes!) but I wish the author shared the content of those letters for a more swoony effect. But all in all, the book made my toes curl from start to finish. Read this if you are still miserable from that good mope-y read you've recently finished (like me) and you want to wash it down with some lighthearted romance.