The Ex Games~Jennifer Echols review

The Ex Games
Simon Pulse
336 Pages
September 8, 2009
Amazon

Now if you read my last review and thought, but I don't have snow and I want it, I want it bad! (Hey, that's what's going on in my head so trust me it's very possible) or you just don't like to read summer books in the winter, then I also have a great book for you.

The Ex Games by Jennifer Echols is a fun romance set in Colorado over winter break. It's two main characters, Nick and Hayden are not the tocken Young Adult Romance or Romantic Comdedy characters, either. Nick's rich because his family has Krieger Meats and Meat Products so they live in the big house, have the great cars and he has the girls fawning over him and Hayden (a vegetarian, by the way) moved to Colorado with her hippieish parents in junior high and loves, loves, loves snowboarding. But not the jumps. She doesn't do jumps.

And, oh yeah, Nick and Hayden went on one date in seventh grade but since then they've been enemies of a sort--the sort who hate each other but also sort of secretly lust after each other.

Throw in a boys vs girls snowboarding competition (with jumps!) for all the marbles, some sexual tension, Hayden's two girl best friends who date Nicks two guy best friends, and they're complicated history and there's a great story that has the romance but also some depth.

While I didn't love The Ex Games as much as I loved Going too Far, it's definitely a great book and has me looking forward to Jennifer Echols' next books. I really liked that Nick and Hayden had a past (both of their own and as a couple) but then didn't just fall all over each other once the book got going. Echols characters really are actual characters that are well developed and stay true to themselves throughout the story and have enough of a history for their present and future to make sense and for you to care about them without it weighing the story down.
There were seperate plot lines and they all progressed very well without detracting from any of the other parts of the story, something not all books can manage.

I also really, really appreciate that there's--so far--always a character that's not caucasian but isn't the token something or another character but just another character.

I had a great time reading about the progression of Nick and Hayden's relationship as well as that of the individual characters themselves.
If you're looking for a book to read over break or on the way to a vacation or flying somewhere--or really just anytime, this is a good choice for sure.

8/10

huge, huge thanks to Jennifer Echols for the book and sorry the review didn't get up earlier like it should have