The Deal

TL;DR

A struggling hockey captain needs help passing a class to keep his eligibility; the classmate he asks needs a fake boyfriend to make her ex jealous. The Deal has stayed a Kindle Store bestseller for the better part of a decade on the strength of sharp banter and a fake-relationship arc that earns its slow build toward something real.

What Is The Deal About?

Garrett Graham, star of the college hockey team, is failing a class he needs to stay eligible, so he asks classmate Hannah Wells to tutor him — in exchange for pretending to be her boyfriend to make her music-major ex jealous. What starts as a transactional arrangement (tutoring for fake dating) develops into real attraction neither of them planned for, complicated by Garrett's reputation as a player and Hannah's determination not to become another one of his conquests.

Who Should Read It?

Readers who want a fake-relationship romance built primarily on witty, chemistry-driven dialogue rather than heavy angst. It's a strong entry point into the New Adult college-romance genre and the long-running Off-Campus series that follows.

Strengths

The banter between Hannah and Garrett is the book's clear engine — funny, well-timed, and doing real work establishing why these two specific characters would fall for each other beyond generic attraction. Kennedy paces the shift from fake to real feelings patiently enough that it earns the payoff rather than rushing there for plot convenience, and Hannah's music ambitions keep her from existing only in relation to the romance plot.

Weaknesses

Several hockey-team supporting characters are sketched thinly enough to feel like setup for their own future books rather than fully developed people in this one. The late-book conflict, driven mostly by a miscommunication that a single honest conversation could resolve, is the plot's weakest structural beat.

Verdict

A decade after publication, The Deal remains a genre standout because the central couple's chemistry is doing real work — not just the fake-relationship premise carrying it alone.