Book Review: Most Likely To Succeed

Author: Jennifer Echols
Publication Date: August 4, 2015
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Series: Superlatives # 3

In this sexy conclusion to The Superlatives trilogy from Endless Summer author Jennifer Echols, Sawyer and Kaye might just be perfect for each other, if only they could admit it.

As vice president of Student Council, Kaye knows the importance of keeping order. Not only in school, but in her personal life. Which is why she and her boyfriend, Aidan, already have their lives mapped out: attend Columbia University together, pursue banking careers, and eventually get married. Everything Kaye has accomplished in high school, student government, cheerleading, stellar grades has been in preparation for that future.

To his entire class, Sawyer is an irreverent bad boy. His antics on the field as school mascot and his love of partying have earned him total slacker status. But while he and Kaye appear to be opposites on every level, and their friends keep conspiring to throw them together. Perhaps the seniors see the simmering attraction Kaye and Sawyer are unwilling to acknowledge to themselves.

As the year unfolds, Kaye begins to realize her ideal life is not what she thought. And Sawyer decides it’s finally time to let down the facade and show everyone who he really is. Is a relationship between them most likely to succeed, or will it be their favorite mistake?

"My mother had told me a million times that because I was a woman, I had to work twice as hard as a man for the same amount of respect. And I was black, so I had to work four times as hard. To get twice as much respect, I had to work eight times as hard, and that's what she expected of me."

“My crush on him was now official and hopeless. He was toying with me, like he toyed with everyone.”

“And now I was caught between Good, I’ve hurt him and Oh, no, I’ve hurt him.”

Jennifer Echols has been one of my favorite YA/Contemporary authors for quite some time now. I read the first book in this series and absolutely loved it! These are the type of books that you will just fly through in one day or less. Jennifer Echols has such a knack for being able to portray teenage characters; they are written so realistically and for this reason I think this series would be great for any young adolescent or young adult. Her teenage characters experience much of the same problems that teenagers face today. The characters in this series are actually written to be a group of friends in high school, so it is very easy to get on a personal level with them and feel as if they are your friends too. In this last book in the series, we get to meet Kaye, the extremely driven, hardworking friend who is involved in everything. Kaye’s opposite is Sawyer, the crazy, goofball who is enamored with her and dotes on her in every way possible. I loved him right from the very start!

Their characters could not be more different, but they go so well together. They teased each other relentlessly, but Sawyer made up for that by how beautiful he continually made Kaye feel. Kaye’s previous relationship left her feeling broken, and I think that is what made me fall for Sawyer even more. There is not one character that I have not enjoyed reading about in this series; they are realistic and the way they bond together is so endearing and really portrays friendship in such a positive light. I could not decide which of these books I liked better and I wish I could have read them back to back straight through. For those of you that have the opportunity, I highly suggest just sitting down and binge reading these; you won’t regret it!

***A free copy of this book was provided to me by the publishers at Simon Pulse in exchange for my honest review***