The End Zone- L.J. Shen

About this book: 

Part of Team Player: A Sports Romance Anthology.

Jolie Louis is a smart girl. She knows that her best friend, Sage Poirier, is a bad idea. He’s a walking, talking cliché. The Adonis quarterback with the bulging biceps and harem of fangirls trailing behind him on campus like a stench you can’t get rid of. Sadly, that’s also the reason she can’t stay away from him. Well, that and the fact that they’re roommates. Jolie is already straddling the line between friendship and more when Sage comes to her with an offer she cannot refuse: be his fake girlfriend and live for free for the rest of the semester. She tells herself that she can handle it. He’s just the boy she saved ten years ago, right? Wrong. So very wrong. He is a man now, and she is his captive Heart, body, and soul…

Release Date: 14th December, 2017 (Rereleasing on 3rd April, 2018).

What I think?

Well well well, will you look at that- Ari giving a five star to a fucking novella. Is the world coming to an end or what?

I’ll be damned, I honestly will be, but goddamn me if I didn’t absolutely fucking love this book. I’m still not sure if it was just the characters- Jolie and Sage- or if it was Leigh with that gorgeous gorgeous writing style of hers; but I was so engrossed in it.

4 chapters- that’s how long this book was, with two extended epilogues, and for me, that’s like 20 chapters too short to feel content. But not once did I feel like I needed anything more for this story to feel completed, and the last time I was this impressed and in love with a novella was with From His Lips.. because Leylaaahhh. So I have to say, I definitely gotta read more of Shen and catch up with her back log of stories, and before anyone throws tomatoes and rotten eggs at me, no I haven’t read Sinners of Saint series yet.

Yet being the moot word. I’ll start with that series the moment I’m done with my ARC backlog. Give me some time people!!

Anyways, before I get distracted again, let me tell you a little about this book, because that’s all I could do considering how little this book is (see what I did there?^.^ You know because it’s a novella and everything.. No? OK, I’ll just move on before you actually throw that tomato at me..)

Okay OKAY! I won’t get distracted AGAIN. But I make no promises.

Jolie meets Sage first time when he moves next to her when they were both 10. For eight days, she hears how his father beats his mother and how she cries, and how he escapes every night to gather himself. On the eighth day, she takes a chance and offers him the friendship he never realized he needed, and 10 years later, they’re best friends.

And then it’s a best friends turned lovers story.

We kiss. Like friends. Like lovers. Like everything in-between.

But that’s not all that it was. Leigh puts a different dimension to this story, and despite there being so much she had to gloss over because of constraints regarding a novella, you feel so damn connected to both the characters- almost intimately so. It was sweet, with very minimal angst, but seriously? I never felt like I needed more angst to make it a thing.

I loved this story just like it was.

Jolie was a really cute character with the side of quirk that I’ve come to expect from Shen’s female leads- with just the perfect drop of weird to make her feel like a human. And then there was Sage- who was just.. he made my heart.. my panties were..

GOD-FUCKING-DAMMIT!

Why do I love Shen’s male leads so much again?! I want Sage, almost more than I want Alex, and that is saying something! The way he got so possessive over Jolie made me grin and warmed my heart and I wanted to jump into my phone, tear him out of the story, drag him to Vegas and marry his tight ass XD.

They hugged long, and tight, and desperately, his skin soaking into hers like a kiss.

He was perfect. Really. Both of them were absolutely perfect in my book. And that final epilogue. That was so fucking hilarious, I was peeing in my pants trying to suppress my laughter, because 3-am undercovers, with the world asleep is a very inappropriate timing to laugh my hyena laugh. I was doing a public service by sacrificing my panties ladies. You should thank me lol. Or maybe my neighbours should for not giving them nightmares, and making them think that I was laughing maniacally after murdering my mother.

*sighs* Ahh old ladies with no work to do are so much fun to traumatize.. now that I think about it, maybe I should’ve laughed after all lol.

Anyways, my psychosis aside, this book was a definite 5 star for me, and it deserved those stars. You should really check this shit out if you’re in mood for something good, and yet quick, that won’t feel so quick.

Like a 5 minute quickie with a 15 minute long orgasm and 2 hours long post-orgasmic bliss.

PS: Will you look at that? A review as long as the book was. Let no one tell you I cannot rant ha!

On the eighth night, the girl have the boy her heart. He took it silently, never offering his back.

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About this author:

L.J. Shen is USA Today and #1 Amazon bestselling author of contemporary romance books. She lives in California with her husband, son and lazy cat.
When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading a good book with a glass of wine and catching up on her favorite HBO and Netflix shows.

Yeah, she’s a badass like that.