DNF. I stopped reading at 30%. This book was not for me as I could not become interested in the story line.

I'm going through the books I requested pre-2018 when I stopped blogging to clean up my NetGalley TBR and this was on the list. I don't think it's a book for me anymore and will not be reviewing at this time, but if I do read it, I will update this review. Thank you for the opportunity.

An entertaining plot with appealing characters.
Many thanks to Forever and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

<b>**FULL REVIEW**</b>

Well damn…I wish I hadn’t waited so long to read this one…and I am now going to get the rest of the series.

Wow.

Not usually a huge fan of mafia romances but this one is mixed with some coming of age, mistaken identity, and enemies to lovers…talk about trifecta!

Trace is the resident charity case and new student at Eagle Elite, a university unlike any other…on her first day, she meets Nixon and his minions of angry elitists, a guy hell-bent on making sure she knows the “rules”.

<I><b>“Rules keep everyone safe.”</b></I>

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started this book, and when it was over, I wasn’t ready for it to be over…I am so glad there are like 8 or 9 books!

Cue “hazing” and “shaming” and all the other ways poor kids get treated when they’re different…then things take a turn, and not necessarily for the better. All of a sudden there are a million unanswered questions and a guy who is so hot and cold, he gives Trace whiplash.

I cannot wait to read the next book…now that we know who everyone is, and why the secrets are so important to keep.

<b>**5 Sleeping Mafia Princess, Stars**</b>

this was on my tar list since 2013 and I did not get a chance to read it. I would love to go back and read it to leave the review

Rachel Van Dyken has been on my want to try author list for so long. I’ve got several of her books but between the cover and the blurb, I decided Elite was the one to pop my cherry.

Hmmm… Not sure if it was a great decision because my overall impression is mixed. The plot is good but fed in bits that had me confused. It does eventually all come together but for the longest time, I didn’t get it. My main issues with the story unfortunately were the characters. All of them. Okay maybe not all of them but most of them and particularly Nixon. Does everybody really have to be so over-the-top, dramatically mean? Trace, she only made my like category. She’s nice and all that but I kept thinking why are you sticking around all the ugly?! And then there’s Nixon. Too mean, too cruel, and to be quite honest, I don’t care why he is the way he is. He was just too unredeemable for me.

Not exactly sure if I will continue with this series. Maybe the next book will be better? More than likely I will try a different series of Ms. Van Dyken’s.


Stars: 2.5
I received this book from Netgalley. I was not compensated for the book other than the entertainment it provided. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Wow! I was not expecting that story. It took a bit for me to get into the story but once I did, I couldn't stop reading. I had to know how it was going to end. I liked that it was different then a lot of other books I've been reading. I would definitely recommend this book, there is suspense, romance, mob bosses, the works! I would give about 4.5 stars. I will be continuing with the series.

Rachel Van Dyken is one of my favorite authors and I can’t forgive myself for letting this book sit too long on my TBR. How could I missed this one??

This book like the author’s other books ( I’ve read two but I am a huge fan! ) , grabbed all my attention instantly. The love triangle? Between Nixon and Chase?? Please don’t make me choose!

I enjoyed reading this book — well paced, entertaining and of course, well written no doubt about it!

Overall, nothing to complain here— sooo good!

RVD knows how to write a romance her books are always so versatile yet you know when you have one of her books in your hands. Intriguing, romantic and steamy - an all round winner.

I’m not really sure how to say this, so I’m just going to come out with it: the following isn’t going to be pretty. Before this year, according to my reading log, I hadn’t given an F to a book since 2006, when I gave FOUR Fs (a bad reading year, to be sure) – three to romances that I really don’t remember any more, and one to Augusten Burrough’s repulsive “memoir” Running with Scissors, which I sadly remember all too well. I did give an F to a book I read earlier this year, a YA that Amazon was offering for free that I later realized was self-published, and which I found so amateurish and histrionic that I felt like reviewing it would be akin to kicking a puppy. A very, very bad puppy.

Which brings me to Elite. This book appears to be professionally published; the author has an extensive backlist. Yet this is one of the most absurd, unrealistic pieces of writing I’ve ever read. I feel horribly snobbish saying, “How in the world did this get published?”, but…how in the world did this get published?

From the first lines of the prologue, I sensed I was in trouble:

Whoever told me life was easy – lied. It’s hard. It sucks. The crazy thing is – nobody has the guts to admit the truth.

So, okay: someone (she doesn’t remember who!) told the narrator that life was easy. Is that a thing people say? “Life – it’s a cakewalk, right?” That is not a thing that people say. Also, anyone who thinks that nobody has the “guts” to own up to the Secret Truth that life is, dun dun dun…hard – hasn’t spent nearly enough time with a mopey adolescent. Or co-workers on a dreary Monday morning. Or me at Whole Foods on Labor Day afternoon (sorry, just had PTSD flashbacks).

Anyway, our story:

Trace Rooks is an 18-year-old farm girl from the earnest plains of Wyoming (seriously, girl LOVES her cows) who has won a scholarship to Eagle Elite (although the way it’s described it sounds more like a lottery, maybe?) which is the most…well, elite and exclusive college in the United States. Her grandfather, who raised her along with her recently deceased grandmother, drives her to a school that closely resembles a fortress, and after a tense encounter with some campus toughs who come off menacing in a vague but silly way, he drops her off and she is on her own, just a small-town farm girl who has (unbeknownst to her) been thrown to the wolves.

There is so much wrong with the description of Eagle Elite that I don’t know where to start. Perhaps the first thing is that it’s maybe, maybe vaguely believable in a “suspending a LOT of disbelief” way, as an elite prep school. As a university, nothing about its description bears any resemblance to reality. Particularly as a university that produces the best and brightest – future presidents and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

First of all, again the school is described like a smallish fenced-off fortress, not a sprawling campus home to thousands of students, with the attendant nearby businesses that would service such a population. Even the smallest elite colleges in the U.S. have well over a thousand students.

Then there is the lottery/scholarship Trace wins – as a college student she should/would have applied to any number of schools and applied as well for available scholarships and financial aid. She wouldn’t be a single “charity case” who the school takes on sight unseen because her name got picked out of a hat.

Also, Trace is referred to as “new girl” and everyone seems to know that she’s new and an outsider/charity case. So, this is a college that has one new student in its freshman class. Okay, then. Also, a bell rings between classes.

Even the name “Eagle Elite” does not exactly scream “prestigious institute of higher learning.” In every way the school reads like a fantasy prep school; I don’t know why the author didn’t just make the characters younger to fit that scenario (though I have some ideas; more on that in a moment).

Trace is bewildered by her new surroundings and by the hostility of her classmates, particularly Nixon. Nixon is a member of the “Elect” who rule the school, and there are numerous rules relating to dealing with the Elect. Don’t speak to one of them unless spoken to, don’t make eye contact; it’s like being a production assistant for Barbra Streisand. Or perhaps attending a highly fictionalized prep school (if you thought I was going to give up on hammering that point home, think again).

So, Trace is in trouble with the bizarre and capriciously cruel Elect pretty much immediately, for breathing the same air as they do or something. Usually in the types of books where plucky young female newcomers are snubbed and abused by the snooty elite, the abusers are female. Making them male makes it feel even ickier and more sinister, and makes me wonder at the fact that most of the Elect (including Nixon, who is, of course…sigh…our hero) are actually supposed to be good guys. Or at least anti-heroes? I don’t know. The whole thing is already so bizarre to me – the world that’s created does not resemble the real world and the people don’t act like real people – that I find it hard to know what I’m supposed to think about the characters.

It gets worse. Trace at least finds an ally in Monroe, her roommate, who is Nixon’s sister (I look forward to being introduced to their siblings Van Buren and Eisenhower). She’s pretty much the only other character in the book who is remotely likable. Or maybe I should say the ONLY character, since I didn’t actually like Trace that much. But anyway, Monroe takes Trace under her wing and runs interference for her with her awful brother. Despite this, Trace is mercilessly abused by the other students. One of the Elect slips her a mickey at a party and puts her in bed with a football player in the guys’ dorm (of which there is only one, I guess? Sort of like a prep-okay, I’m not even going to say it this time). She wakes fully clothed and clearly nothing happened, but that doesn’t stop all of the other students from branding Trace a whore. At one point they form a gauntlet and pelt her with eggs while chanting “slut” and “whore.”

All of this happens, by the way, because Nixon, who has offered Trace some ephemeral “protection”, spitefully withdraws the offer after she stubbornly says she doesn’t need it. He wants her to come crawling to him and admit she needs him.

Anyway, after the egg-throwing incident, there is more weirdness and absurdity when Nixon takes Trace shopping. See, her stuff got ruined in the egg attack, including her phone, bag, and uniform. Yes, they wear a uniform at this…university. The shopping trip involves the entire Elect and a security detail that would rival the Pope’s. The many guns of their entourage, as well as Nixon’s over-the-top reaction to the necklace (an heirloom from her grandmother) that Trace is wearing, strike Trace as odd, but her curiosity is rather muted given the bizarreness of the goings-in. Of course, she’s clearly used to bizarre goings-on at this point, but one would think that they these odd occurrences would give her pause. Or that she might be more than mildly curious about the deference that Nixon receives virtually everywhere he goes when they are out and about.

It turns out that…

Spoiler (spoiler): Show

What I found odd and interesting (I guess?) is that given the information in the spoiler above, what we have is a YA in which the protagonists are ostensibly college students, but are in a setting that much more closely resembles high school (their maturity level was consistent with high-school age kids, as well). Yet Nixon, at least, is apparently professionally in the position of man decades older. It’s just strange. Besides being further evidence of the book’s very loose connection to reality, it felt like an attempt to kind of have it both ways – to have YA characters and situations but give the characters (especially the hero, a term I use loosely here) the gravity and, for lack of a better word, glamour of adult lives.

In this, I feel that Elite is doing something that a lot of the YAs and NAs that I’ve read lately do – they take young characters but give them adult concerns – whether it be addicted parents, dead parents, responsibilities for younger siblings, serious illnesses, dealing with sexual assault, etc. All those themes can be interesting, but sometimes I just wish I could read an NA that takes a relatively young couple, gives them relatively normal concerns, and yet somehow still manages to create a story with enough weight to make their youthful concerns interesting. I consider myself the Queen of Angst, so it feels strange to say this, but there you have it.

Nixon is a parody of a BMOC/alpha-male hybrid – super-cocky and obnoxiously full of himself, though he has a weird aversion to being touched, an aversion that hints at a Dark Past. Trace is supposed to be spunky but is mostly just really annoying, and also kind of stupid. As a couple they are insipid and dull. Nixon refers to them as “Romeo and Juliet” at one point but the only trait they share with that couple is immature stupidity. Nixon: I will have to be mean to you so no one knows I care but I really do care; it’s for your own good. (Is mean to her.) Trace: Why is he being so mean to me!? Does he hate me!? Um, do you remember what he said two pages ago? I mean, it was dumb but it wasn’t like he wasn’t speaking English and using short, declarative sentences.

I’ve been meaning to comment on the ubiquity of the word “smirk” in the YAs and NAs I’ve been reading. Since Elite is a particular offender, now is as good a time as any to bitch about it. The words “smirk” or “smirked” appeared 37 times in the course of the book. Why do NA authors like this word so much? I feel like Inigo Montoya, with the “that-word-doesn’t-mean-what-you-think-it-means.” I mean, I see “smirk” as being a negative word, maybe occasionally used in the context of friendly teasing, but mostly, as Merriam-Webster states, indicating a “smug or affected smile”. YA and NA authors of the world, please cut back on the smirking.

In summary, this book was ridiculous. Not fun-ridiculous (at least not for me) but weird-ridiculous. The situations and scenarios bore no relationship to real life situations and scenarios as I understand them or have experienced them, and the people frequently did not act and react like I would expect normal human people to. My grade for Elite is an F.

Apparently I never wrote a review when I read this back in 2013. Well, I loved it. Nine books later, I still love this series. RVD provides twists and turns, humor, romance, tears, and some good ol’ mafia violence. If this is what appeals to you, I highly recommend this book and this series.

This book just wasn't for me. I didn't like the writing style and I would DNF it but I actually finished the book.

I went into this expecting a completely different book than what I read. It had a promising start but ultimately I didn't connect. It was just a bit to out there for me and some of the characters where just off and I didn't get their motivation. The writing was okay though the flow could be stilted and the ending felt rushed. I did finish even though I was tempted to DNF several times. This one wasn't for me.

My first read by this author but it definitely wont be my last. I loved the uniqueness of the storyline which as a reader I read loads I crave for.

Trace wins a scholarship for the Eagle Elite College. Unfortunately she doesn’t have an easy time from the other students. Thankfully she’s a strong feisty character.

I thought this was a great read and look forward to reading more in the series.

Too much language and innuendo for me. I'm also not a fan of bullying. I was expecting something different and was a little sad it didn't deliver what I wanted. I'm sure that others will love this book, but it just wasn't for me.

I read Elite a few years back and decided to do a reread. Nothing else was holding my attention and there is something about this series that I can’t get enough of. When I realized I never actually reviewed it I found this the perfect time to do so. I think it is because I love the asshole hero character and the sassy heroine who stands up to him and has him on his knees. Add in a certain element that I personally love and this book whore is in heaven. And while this book has been out for a while I won’t ruin what that additional element is, you have to find out for yourself if you haven’t already read Elite. You don’t talk to the Elect, you don’t touch the Elect, and you sure as hell don’t ever fuck with the Elect.

Trace and Nixon these two circle each other’s atmospheres. The chemistry between them is undeniable, even when Nixon is making Trace’s life hell he can’t help but protect her at the same time. Confusing? Maybe just a tad bit but the more you get into the storyline the more you learn and the more your eyes open to what is going on and what secrets are revealed. More than once did I want to beat Nixon, Chase, Tex and Phoenix with a bat for how they treated Trace, especially Phoenix, and I think you will want to do the same when you read it. Mo, Nixon’s sister was the perfect balance to Nixon’s asshole tendencies.

If you are looking for a college romance that is so much more than just that, one filled with secrets, lies, truths, and oaths, characters that you find yourself loving even when you should hate them and a book that will have you hooked almost immediately, well then Elite is the one for you. I think an entire series reread is in order.