Review: Aces Up by Lauren Barnholdt.

Posted November 17, 2010 by Rowena in Reviews | 3 Comments

Main Character: Shannon Card
Love Interest: Max Heller
Series: None
Author: Website|Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads

Seventeen-year-old high school senior Shannon Card needs money. And lots of it. She’s been admitted to Wellesley, but her dad just lost his job, and somehow she has to come up with a year of tuition herself. But Shannon’s dream of making big bucks waitressing at the local casino, the Collosio, disappears faster than a gambler’s lucky streak. Her boss is a tyrant, her coworker is nuts, and her chances of balancing a tray full of drinks while wearing high-heeled shoes are slim to none. Worse, time is running out, and Shannon hasn’t made even half the money she’d hoped.

When Shannon receives a mysterious invitation to join Aces Up, a secret network of highly talented college poker players, at first she thinks No way. She has enough to worry about: keeping her job, winning the coveted math scholarship at school, and tutoring her secret crush, Max. But when Shannon musters up the nerve to kiss Max and he doesn’t react at all, the allure of Aces Up and its sexy eighteen-year-old leader, Cole, is suddenly too powerful to ignore.

Soon Shannon’s caught up in a web of lies and deceit that makes worrying about tuition money or a high school crush seem like kid stuff. Still, when the money’s this good, is the fear of getting caught reason enough to fold?

This was a really quick read for me. I’m not much of a card player (though I can get down in some Speed and Palace) and I’m a dismal poker player and in general, I have no interest in card games and stories centered around card games but for some reason, this book made itself onto my I WANT TO READ THIS list and I’m so glad that I was given the chance to read this book because I totally enjoyed the heck out of it!

Shannon Card was the bomb. She was such a likeable character, one that I connected with and wanted to be best friends with. I admired the way that she took her money troubles into her own hand and went after getting the money for her college tuition any way that she could. She was such a ballsy lass and I admired the way she just bumbled her way through her crappy job. Now, don’t get me wrong, there were times when I wanted to slap my hand over her mouth to get her to shut up but that didn’t stop me from wanting to find out what happened between her, Cole and everything else in her life.

I enjoyed the whole situation with Max, it was that part of the story that kept me glued into the book. I needed to know what happened between them and then I needed to hear Max’s reasons and I needed to find out the who, what, where and why’s of that whole thing.

This is my first Barnholdt and I can definitely say that it won’t be my last. I enjoyed this book greatly and would definitely recommend it to fans of contemporary YA romances or just fans of Barnholdt. She weaved a great story with likable characters and an interesting take on the poker world. Now, don’t go expecting something deep and thought provoking when you start this book. This story is all light, breezy and totally cute.

Thanks to Holly over at Good Golly Miss Holly for hosting the blog tour that brought this book to my house for some enjoyable hours of reading. I look forward to making my way through Barnholdt’s back list after this.