Title: Community Service
Author: Dakota Madison
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Age Group: Adult (18+)
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.
As Maggie Mitchell enters her final semester of college, the last thing she wants is a guy in her life, let alone two of them.
Her new lab partner, Sawyer Reed, is still the overconfident and sexy jock that made fun of her in high school. The only thing that has changed is that he now uses a wheelchair, the result of a skiing accident.
Jude Marino is a hot actor who all the girls want and would do anything to get. He works at a local theater where Maggie has been assigned to complete community services hours after rear-ending a police car.
Both Sawyer and Jude want Maggie but only one of them will be able to capture her heart.
In Community Service, Maggie is starting a prestigious internship in college, and runs into a boy she’s last seen in high school, Sawyer. Only now he’s confined to a wheelchair, and anything but the popular jock he used to be. Like Maggie’s life isn’t tough enough already, she also has to do community service after driving into a cop’s car. She has to do community service in the local theatre, where she has to help an actor, Jude, who is every girl’s bad boy dream. Maggie’s life gets a ton more complicated when both Jude and Sawyer start showing interest in her. Whereas Jude’s interest may be trying to get her in his bed, and Sawyer may have had a crush on her all along, Maggie still has to face her own darkest thoughts if she has to choose between them.
I’m not usually fond of love triangles, but the one here was intriguing. We meet Sawyer first, and I instantly had mixed feelings about him. I felt sorry for him being in a wheelchair, and loved his positive attitude despite all of it, but I wasn’t too fond of how he’d teased Maggie when she was in high school. Sure, teasing may be a way of showing affection, but I’m not a fan. Still, Sawyer seemed to have redeemed himself, and he was a generally nice guy.
But Jude….I loved him. Seriously. In real life, I probably would’ve hated him, but he’s one of the best bad boy characters I’ve read about in a while. He has it all, from the wicked sense of humor to the sense of entitlement, to the confidence and attitude. I hated how he acted toward Sawyer, who used to be his best friend, but it suited his personality. Like I said, I loved him on paper, but in real life, he’d be one of the worst people around.
The writing was good. I wished the relationship between Maggie and Sawyer would have developed on a slower pace. I’m not to keen on insta-love, but since they already knew each other in high school, I’m willing to give this one a pass. Apart from that, I loved the characters, setting, and plot.
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