Bad Rep by A. Meredith Walters

About the book

Bad Rep is a New Adult novel by A. Meredith Walters. It was published in e-book format on 21^st December.

Synopsis (Taken from Goodreads.com)

Maysie Ardin is soaking up the summer before her junior year of college, shopping, hanging by the pool and shopping some more. But when her black belt in spending lands her in trouble with her parents, she is forced to take a second job at a local bar to dig herself out of a deep financial pit.

She thought she’d be miserable. But then Maysie didn’t count on Jordan Levitt, the hot, pierced and tattooed, drum playing bartender who also happens to be very interested in her. And the feelings are totally mutual.

It had the makings of the perfect romantic set up. Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Boy has girlfriend? Okay, maybe not.

But attraction is a hard thing to ignore and soon Jordan and Maysie find themselves in the middle of a gossip induced firestorm. Maysie has to learn whether she can set aside her fear of public disapproval in order to be with the one she wants. Or will she let the opinions of others dictate her life and her heart?

What I thought

I’ve been on a bit of a New Adult kick recently and this was another of the books I managed to get on Kindle at a cheap price over Christmas.

Maysie Ardin has the shock of her life when she gets a $3500 credit card bill which her parents insist she pays off herself. It was only supposed to be for emergencies and she blew the cash on expensive shoes. She already has one job but knows that is not going to cover the credit card bill, especially with sorority dues to pay as well. This obviously means getting a second job, which she does at a local bar along with her roommate. This is where the story begins as this is where she meets the devilishly hot Jordan.

I liked Maysie for the most part although she did annoy me slightly with the way she acted sometimes. Also with some of her phrases. Let’s just say there were far too many uses of vagina and I wanted to slap her a little bit. Other than that though, there was quite a lot to like about her. She sticks by her friends no matter what, she knows when she’s done wrong and also really doesn’t want to start anything with Jordan once she knows he has a girlfriend. I did admire this about her because she was loud and clear about how she felt about it. However, she wasn’t the greatest of characters and I do think there could have been more that was likeable about her.

Jordan, however, was smoking hot and I loved him – even though he was a bit of an asshole. He flirted with girls like crazy, especially Maysie as soon as she started her new job at the bar. Jordan is a drum playing, accounting major, pierced and tattooed guy with a bit of a reputation for being a womaniser. He isn’t all bad though – far from it actually. The more about Jordan I got to know, the more I loved him. Deep down, he isn’t the guy he is made out to be and I was glad to see there was a lot more to him than originally shown. Much like Maysie though, his sayings were annoying and there was too much ‘baby’ calling going on for my liking.

This is a New Adult novel so expect sex scenes and plenty of them. Although there isn’t too much of this in the first half, Walters more than makes up for it in the second half. The scenes are very steamy and passion fuelled although not entirely realistic a lot of the time. I didn’t really mind that though because when is sex ever really real in books. There has only been a handful of sex scenes I’ve read that were anything remotely resembling real.

Some of the other New Adult novels I’ve read have dealt with some really hard to read themes but this one is more of a light-hearted read which I was thankful for. The plot is all about liking someone you can’t have and the repercussions of doing something you shouldn’t. I liked that the whole plot wasn’t overtaken by Maysie and Jordan’s relationship and that there was so much about friendship in this book. The female characters are strong and outspoken which was something I loved and they were also all so different.

This isn’t my favourite of the New Adult novels I have read but I certainly didn’t dislike it. There were just a few things that really bugged me throughout.