College is a four-year transition time between being a kid to an adult, and it is a breeding ground for hilarious stories and very memorable times. There are parties to attend and required classes to endure. But for Ellie, college is even more complicated. After her relationship with her mother is ruined, Ellie transfers to the college where her father works and becomes a work study student under him. The only thing is, he has no idea that she’s his daughter. In fact, he has no idea that he had a daughter at all. To make matters worse, he is married with a newborn daughter, Ellie’s half-sister. Aside from that complication, Ellie expects a fairly normal year of college. She makes friends with her roommates and has a very tentative romance with her coworker Logan, despite Ellie’s inclination to never trust another man after her last relationship crashed and burned. However, she’s drawn to Logan despite herself, even though he isn’t ready for a relationship either. College classes take a brutal turn for Ellie when she finds herself in the class of a strict Chemistry professor who is more likely to fail than pass her students. After getting threats from the college for her research funding to be cut, she’s out for blood. While it’s clear Professor Rogers plays dirty in the classroom by giving tests on material she doesn’t cover in class, it’s possible that Professor Rogers is up to something even worse than intentionally failing her students. And it is clear that Logan is somehow involved because he acts distant and nervous every time Ellie even mentions Chemistry.
I’ve had my share of bad teachers. One of my teachers actually stood next to my desk and announced to the class when I got an answer wrong and then asked my classmates to explain it to me. She also liked to model her lessons to complement an academic summer camp that half the class was willing to spend five hundred dollars on. She didn’t understand why the rest of us didn’t go to the camp and chalked it up to slacking, which had a zero tolerance for. But professor Rogers is a thousand times worse than my teacher ever was and because of that, she is a great bad guy. However, her character wasn’t as interesting as Ellie’s, Logan’s, and Dex’s. I have to admit that I have a bit of a crush on both Dex and Logan. Dex definitely has Ellie’s back, which I like. Even though he doesn’t do the showy things that Logan does, like save Ellie’s life or offer comfort while she gets her belly button pierced, he is still there for her in lots of little ways, even if he does have ulterior motives. As the leader of a Chemistry study group intent on declaring war on Dr. Rogers, he recruited Ellie to bake and flirt with Roger’s teacher aid, but it isn’t long before he really likes and respects her, which I find incredibly attractive. And even though Logan is the real love interest, I think Dex is much more loyal to her than Logan is. However, Logan is dealing with his own problems.
While Logan is a charming guy who likes to play hero, he has a troubled past with his family and with his classes. He has as much resentment and anger built up in him as Ellie does, which causes the two of them to have a lot of problems because neither can deal with their resentment well enough to not cause problems. However, I like his flaws. They make him seem more human, and they make his relationship with Ellie more realistic because even when two people who like each other get together, there is always some baggage to sort through, and a relationship rarely gets off flawlessly, which a lot of books show.
Compared to the main storylines, the love story is pretty understated. There’s a lot more time spent developing backstories and declaring war on Professor Rogers than developing the relationship between Ellie and Logan. However, Reckless Longing is the first in a series so I’m sure things will heat up in the later books. I know I’m looking forward to reading the next of this series and plenty of teenaged girls, especially those going into college, will find this book wildly entertaining and addictive.