Rowena’s review of Rush Me by Allison Parr.
Hero: Ryan Carter
Heroine: Rachael Hamilton
When post-grad Rachael Hamilton accidentally gatecrashes a pro-athlete party, she ends up face-to-face with Ryan Carter, the NFL’s most beloved quarterback.
While most girls would be thrilled to meet the attractive young millionaire, Rachael would rather spend time with books than at sporting events, and she has more important things to worry about than romance. Like her parents pressuring her to leave her unpaid publishing internship for law school. Or her brother, who’s obliviously dating Rachael’s high school bully. Or that same high school’s upcoming reunion.
Still, when Ryan’s rookie teammate attaches himself to Rachael, she ends up cohosting Friday night dinners for half a dozen football players.
Over pancake brunches, charity galas, and Alexander the Great Rachael realizes all the judgments she’d made about Ryan are wrong. But how can a Midwestern Irish-Catholic jock with commitment problems and an artsy, gun-shy Jewish New Englander ever forge a partnership? Rachael must let down her barriers if she wants real love–even if that opens her up to pain that could send her back into her emotional shell forever.
Holly recommended this book to me and said, “You’re going to like this book so read it.” What’s a girl to do? I read it, of course. And once again, Holly wasn’t wrong.
This book follows post-college student turned publishing intern, Rachael Hamilton as she falls head over heels in love with the starting NFL quarter for the New York Leopards, Ryan Carter. Yeah, he really does play for the Leopards. But he’s hot so I didn’t laugh too much. Ryan and Rachael meet when she mistakenly walks in on Ryan being “serviced” at a party that wasn’t the party she was looking for.
They couldn’t have been more different from each other. He’s an athlete and she’s a nerd. She has no idea who he is and she’s not that impressed with him, either. In fact, she thinks he’s pretty much an asshole and he’s not a fan of her either. He thinks she’s a gold digging whore that is trying to pull one over on one of his friends and he’s got his eye on her.
It wasn’t hard for me to fall into this story, at all. I absolutely adored the book and came to love the characters. I had some frustrations with Rachael’s character but not enough that the story itself was ruined. I wanted to smack her around a few times just as I wanted to smack Ryan around some but overall, the story wrapped me up for a few hours and I enjoyed my time with these characters.
The romance between Ryan and Rachael wasn’t easy but it was fun and the side characters added more depth to a story that I came to love. I thought Parr did a great job of sucking me into Ryan’s world and into Rachael’s world as she tries to figure things out. Where she stands with Ryan and where she stands with herself when she chooses to be with Ryan.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. It’s a great book with characters and a story that kept me interested the whole way through so I’m a happy camper and am thrilled that Holly made me read this book. She knows my reading tastes so well.
Grade: 4.5 out of 5
This book is available from Carina Press. You can buy it here in e-format.
You give me hope, Wena, ’cause I have to read this one for review and it was a total impulse request that later made me go Uh… what did I do? probably won’t get approved anyway…. but then I did. LOL
Anyways!! I’m gonna give it a go soon, and your review makes me think I’ll like it at least some.
Holly was actually the one that made me read this book. I’m glad she made me. I hope you like it as much as I did but be warned…the heroine is a little hard to take at times but still, I enjoyed it.