Review: All Played Out by Cora Carmack

Posted June 28, 2015 by Rowena in Reviews | 3 Comments

Rowena’s review of All Played Out (Rusk University #3) by Cora Carmack.

First person in her family to go to college? CHECK.
Straight A’s? CHECK.
On track to graduate early? CHECK.
Social life? …..yeah, about that….

With just a few weeks until she graduates, Antonella DeLuca’s beginning to worry that maybe she hasn’t had the full college experience. (Okay… Scratch that. She knows she hasn’t had the full college experience).

So Nell does what a smart, dedicated girl like herself does best. She makes a “to do” list of normal college activities.

Item #1? Hook up with a jock.

Rusk University wide receiver Mateo Torres practically wrote the playbook for normal college living. When he’s not on the field, he excels at partying, girls, and more partying. As long as he keeps things light and easy, it’s impossible to get hurt… again. But something about the quiet, shy, sexy-as-hell Nell gets under his skin, and when he learns about her list, he makes it his mission to help her complete it.

Torres is the definition of confident (And sexy. And wild), and he opens up a side of Nell that she’s never known. But as they begin to check off each crazy, exciting, normal item, Nell finds that her frivolous list leads to something more serious than she bargained for. And while Torres is used to taking risks on the field, he has to decide if he’s willing to take the chance when it’s more than just a game.

Together they will have to decide if what they have is just part of the experiment or a chance at something real.

This book!

I loved it. I loved the characters. I loved the romance. I loved the cast. I just flat out loved everything so be prepared for a lot of gushing in this review. I’m apologizing in advance for all of the oohing and ahhing I will be doing in this review.

Nell DeLuca is months away from graduating from college early and she’s realized that she hasn’t really lived the college experience so she’s going to change that. She makes a college bucket list and with the help of local party boy, football star Mateo Torres, she starts to make some progress on that list.

Mateo doesn’t know why he’s drawn to Nell so much but he is. Sure, she reminds him of his ex-girlfriend but there’s chemistry brewing between them and on top of wanting to bone her, he wants to get to know her.

When we first meet Torres in the other books, he’s this player. He loves to party and he loves being the center of attention. He doesn’t take anything seriously so when I found out that his girl was going to be Nell, who is the complete opposite of him, I knew it was going to be a great story and it was.

I read and loved both of the books that came before this one. I loved Carson and I loved Silas but there was something about Torres in this book that put him over the top as my favorite hero of this series. I loved seeing the party boy tamed by the nerdy girl. I loved seeing him fall more and more in love with Nell before he even realizes he’s falling. He was so much fun to get to know that he made this story for me.

Nell was Torres’ opposite in every way and I loved her. I thought she was awesome in that nerdy, you have to know her to love her kind of way. I’ve known a lot of Nell’s in my life. People who are too smart or book smart but completely ignorant of the world outside of their academics. Nell didn’t know how to act or be or even feel around people her own age. She threw herself into her studies because those were the things that she understood. She was awkward and she was smart and she rocked my socks.

Nell and Torres together was pretty awesome too. I loved seeing Nell not understand that Torres was serious when he said he wanted to hang out with her. I loved seeing how jealous Torres got whenever Nell did something on the list without him. I just loved seeing the two of them come together.

Their beginning was cute, their bumpy road was interesting and the way that they came together was great too. I’m hard pressed to find anything to gripe about because everything in this book worked for me. All of it. Torres. Nell. Seeing the gang again. The list. Everything.

I loved it.

Grade: 5 out of 5

This book is available from William Morrow & Company. You can purchase it here or here in e-format.