For much of the last fifteen years one
of my pleasures – not guilty, only rarely shared here – have been romance
novels. I've rarely shared those particular books at this site, though every so
often I've been reviewing a few of the authors who work in the field.
I have no boundaries with this genre:
YA, simply romantic, pretty erotic, friends to lovers, enemies to lovers,
heterosexual, LGBTQ+, even the occasional walk on the wild side into
polyamorous ones. I have a couple of qualifiers found after years of trial and
error: the biggest one being that they have to be contemporary romances. I've
never been able to get into the 'romantasy' genre but that's more because I
have issues with the 'fantasy' part of it. That's the major reason I never
became a fan of Starz's Outlander franchise – I read the first volume of
Diana Galbadon's work but could never get into any of the others. It's the same
reason I've never been able to get into Game Of Thrones or Vikings; it's
just not my cup of tea but I don't judge the ones who are devoted to it.
What I've found surprising is given
how streaming services and films have been lapping up every form of IP
imaginable I've yet to see, say, any series or movies devoted to the works of
Christina Lauren or Lynn Painter, both of whom have a huge readership and
following. I have no doubt much of it has to do with it being viewed as a
female-only genre which is a clear sign of institutional sexism in our society,
yada, yada, yada, I just which they'd get over it. And it does seem in the last
couple of years the world of streaming is.
Now though I cast a wide net for
romance reading as with every other major book I am aware of what I like and
don't like. Which is why I will eventually see People We Meet on Vacation but
have no desire to see The Love Hypothesis. I've read my share of Emily
Henry and Ali Hazelwood and I much prefer the former.
The main reason I've written nothing
about the cultural phenomenon so big there are people up in arms that it didn't
get nominated for Emmys this year: Heated Rivalry. And that's because I
have to make a confession: until the series was greenlit I'd never heard of
Rachel Reid's romance novels between gay hockey players. To be clear I was well
aware of hockey romances and even gay hockey romances. But that's
because over the last several years I've been reading the books of one of the
most enjoyable writers in the entire genre: Elle Kennedy.
Because of my eclectic nature I didn't
find out about Elle Kennedy until about four years ago when I read the first
book in her Avalon Bay series Good Girl Complex. The majority of
Kennedy's novels are set among woman who are in their twenties and either in
college or on the verge of graduating. Like so many romance novelists she
splits her narratives between the male and female perspective. (Lauren and Painter, who I mentioned above, are
two writers who follow this pattern but it's common to many writers in the
genre.) I ended up finding Kennedy's first hockey romances when I was reading
the 'Briar U' series which is by far her biggest franchise. And in my way of
doing things I then ended up with the wellspring Off Campus.
For those of you who've not
encountered them like so many of Kennedy's works the Off Campus series takes
place in Briar University, a fictional Ivy League School in Massachusetts. Briar
is part of the most dominant college hockey teams in the entire country and
anyone whose part of the Briar Hockey Team is automatically the alphas on the
campus. Every female college students wants to sleep with the hockey team – and
the hockey teams is more than fine with it – and most of the male college students
want to be the briar hockey team – and to be clear some of them want to
sleep with the hockey team – which more than a few are open too.
The Off Campus series centers on four
students who have been rooming together since freshman year and have become
essentially brothers in every way. Garrett Graham, John Logan, Dean DiLaurentis
and John Tucker. (To clear things up right away even Logan and Tucker refer to
themselves by their last names and only use 'John' when they are angry at each
other.) The series begins in their junior year while the new hockey season is
underway.
What might strike many readers – and
perhaps be refreshing to the average viewer – is the players and almost
everyone on campus is only interested in the day-to-day details of their lives
rather than outside factors. Everybody goes to class, they go to sorority
parties, they go to pep rallies, after parties, they worry about their grades
and their future out of college. To be very clear these books all acknowledge
that they do take place during Trump's first term but none of them – male,
female, or whatever – are terrified of the world outside. They're more
concerned with what will happen each season, passing tests and what their
future might look like post college.
And just to be clear nobody – not even
the alphas on the Briar hockey team – is living a charmed life. Garrett Graham
is wealthy because of his family name, but his father – a pro-hockey legend –
is an abusive drunk who drove Garrett's mother away and is clearly doing the
same to his second wife. Logan's dealing with a drunk father and comes from a
very working class home and he thinks that once he leaves Briar his life is
over because he's going to have to take care of him for the rest of his life.
Tucker comes from a single mom family in a working class town in Dallas. Dean
comes from wealth and privilege and is very happy about his life and he seems
incredibly shallow. Naturally when we reach his novel we learn theirs more to
him than meets the eye.
None of them are looking for love and
long-term relationships – this is college after all. Hookups happen easier to
them then most but it's also common for just about everyone else in Briar.
Kennedy is wonderful because she makes it very clear in all of her books
relating to Briar that the women are just as capable of wanting to get laid as
men are and frequently aren't looking for relationships either.
To give the best example there is
Sabrina James. If there was such a thing as an alpha female Sabrina would be
that. The first time we meet her at a frat party she goes right to the Briar
quarterback (football is important in Briar but the team isn't as good as the
hockey team) and begins to make out with him. Dean is sitting across from her
and the first thing she does is fix Dean with a look and say
"Richie."
After Dean acknowledges her presence:
"I noticed you actually bothered
showing up for class this morning" Sabrina smirks. "You realize the
TA is a dude, huh? You poor thing. Can't fuck your way into a passing
grade."
"Blow me, Sabrina."
(Sabrina) cocks a brow. "Yeah?
Pull it out, big boy."
It should be mentioned that by this
point its established Dean is basically the best looking man perhaps on campus
and he just to look at a girl and they'll fall at his feet. By this point quite
a few of the woman who've been narrating novels are non-plussed by Dean but
Sabrina's the first one who seems to hate him. Not that she cares that much;
within a minute she pulls her target away and they're clearly about to hook up
as loudly and noisily as possible.
Most of the woman Kennedy has tell
their side of the story are not as alpha as Sabrina but they are very sure of
themselves in life and in a sense sexually. By far my favorite character of the
Off-Campus series is Allie Hayes who we meet in the first novel. Annie is
described as utterly confident in her sexuality, can be very focused and loud
in her sex with her boyfriend and has a lot of energy.
One of my favorite lines in the entire
series comes in The Score, which is the story of Allie and Dean. This is
the enemies to lovers romance trope as Allie thinks Dean is a 'man-whore (which
Dean will later sees proud of) After Allie breaks up with her boyfriend and
Hannah is out of town, she orders Dean to look after Allie to prevent her from
getting back together with her ex.
Naturally they end up hooking up
(Allie initiates the encounter, for the record) and in the aftermath Dean is
frankly put off why Allie doesn't want to have a repeat performance. So after
he texts her and says what he wants to sleep with her again, Allie's response
is simple. "Well, of course he does. I'm amazing in bed."
Allie's problem is that she doesn't
like having one-night stands: she likes relationships. However she admits she
remembers just how great the sex was and then proceeds to realize that she has
to work this out logically. She wants to have sex with Dean again and he wants
to sleep with her. So she comes up with the next proof:
Premise I: Casual sex makes me
uncomfortable
Premise II: I just got out of a
long-term relationship and am not ready for another one.
Premise III: Even if I was, I wouldn't
want a relationship with man-whore Dean.
Conclusion: Um…?
I mean, you got give credit to any
woman who decides to have casual sex with someone because she aced
Argumentative Logic.
And Kennedy because she makes it clear
that no one is an idiot in her books later proves that despite their efforts
they haven't fooled anybody. In the concluding novel The Goal, which
tells Tucker's story, makes it clear he can follow the clues:
Allie Hayes, the best friend of our
other roommate's girlfriend, crashed at our place last night.
Dean is a man-whore.
Chicks love Dean.
Ally is a chick.
Ergo, Dean slept with Allie.
Followed by:
Plus, there were the clothes scattered
around the living room because Dean is physically incapable of having sex in
his bedroom.
That's another mystery that baffles
everybody who knows Dean and of course Allie finds about it. To be clear she
also remembers because she tells Dean "I want to christen it" and
Dean has had sex there before, of course. Many, many times.
Even as a critic there are some things
you turn to as comfort food not necessarily because they're the best things
ever but because they bring you happiness when you need them such as Law
& Order reruns or simply watching a few minutes of Big Little Lies every
time I feel like it. When I need to unwind a little during the day I'll look at
a romance novel much like Elle Kennedy. And this is, to be clear, coming from a
cis white male. I can only imagine how many women have turned to it over the
years.
Which is why I was happy to learn last
year that Amazon was doing a streaming version of Off Campus and happier
still when it was renewed for a second season even before the first season
debuted last May. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't hanging on to see who was cast
to play Garrett and Hannah in the first season (The Deal, the first
novel in the series deals with their love story) but there was a period when I
could understand why so many people might care when the next MCU trailer or the
preview for House of Dragon came out.
Nor was I shocked to learn that the
first season has become one of the most streamed series in Amazon's history and
that practically overnight the cast of complete unknowns from Ella Bright and
Belmont Cameli have become the kind of overnight sensation the same way the
cast of Heated Rivalry did. These
characters mean something they people. Hell they mean something to me.
We turn to books like these in a
complicated, messy world because they are formulaic but there's always room for
variation in the formula and you still care about the characters anyway. This has
been true of almost every romance novel I've read and it's definitely true for Off-Campus.
There are just small foibles and
quirks that I truly love that you don't find in any other genre. I love the
recurring gag, for example, how Logan keeps trying to come up with texting
acronyms that make no sense to anyone but him when he says them but because
Garrett knows his friend so well he can translate them without much effort. I
love the bond that forms among the girlfriends of the Briar team that
eventually becomes deeper that being in the same place and becomes a sisterhood
itself overtime. (And if you've read your share of Kennedy you know these bonds
last way beyond graduation.) And because I'm a fan of shared universe
stories as a whole I always love how side characters you meet in a novel in one
book will end up getting their own story three or four books later and the constant
callback to earlier novels.
Now that my rush for the Emmys is over
I plan to finally start watching Off Campus this week and perhaps even
reviewing it for my blog at some point. Perhaps I'll go in depth the way for
other series and literary adaptations, maybe I'll just enjoy the ride. And I do
look forward to meeting who they eventually get to play just later characters
as Sabrina and Grace and if they go a little later Hunter Davenport and Summer,
Dean's sister whose even more attractive then he is and instantly gets a crush
on one of the introverts on the team. I'm not going to be one of those
nitpickers about how they're getting small details different because I don't
care that much and I'm not that kind of person.
Oh and just in case there are some
people who don't know: Elle Kennedy has written her share of gay hockey love
stories. Most of them are done in collaboration with Sabrina Bowen, who like
Kennedy has her own series of hockey romances that span the entire sexual spectrum.
And if that's a little too much Lynn Painter's most recent YA novel is called Fake
Skating and tells the story of two childhood friends who reconnect when she
moves to Minnesota and finds her childhood friend is now the local town's
hockey god.
I'm just putting that out there
because some people might say those stories deserve TV series too. You know,
some people.
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