Offsetting Penalties
Isabelle Oster has dreamed of being a prima ballerina her entire life, so when the only male dancer backs out of the fall production, she’s devastated. Without a partner, she has no hope of earning a spot with the prestigious Ballet Americana company. Until hot jock Garret practicing stretches in one of the studios gives Izzy an idea, and she whips out her phone. But does she really want this badly enough to resort to blackmail?  Â
All-state tight end Garret Mitchell will do anything to get a college football scholarship. Even taking ballet, which surprisingly isn’t so bad, because it means he gets to be up close and personal with the gorgeous Goth girl Izzy while learning moves to increase his flexibility. But Izzy needs him to perform with her for the Ballet Americana spot, and he draws the line at getting on stage. Especially wearing tights.
Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains a bit of blackmail, a lot of sarcasm, and an ending guaranteed to melt your heart.
*Before I dive into my review, I want to thank NetGalley and Entangled Teen Crush for sending me an E-arc of this book in exchange for a review.*
I am not usually a fan of e-books, I love the feeling of reading and holding a book. But when I started this one on my Kindle, I couldn’t put it down. I was reading it at every opportunity I had. I read it on the train to and from school, I read it in between classes. I even found myself trying to find time to run back to my dorm room so I could read it. The one downside I find with e-books is that I can’t take good book pictures of them because my Kindle is in black and white and the pictures don’t come out good.
Isabelle needs a partner of the fall ballet and Garret needs someone to give him ballet lessons, due to his coaches orders. Isabelle agrees to do it for him in exchange for him to be her partner, but neither of them really expected to connect the way they do during these lessons.
If you have read my reviews before, you’ll know that something I focus on a lot in YA novels is character development. While in this story I saw some character development, but not a lot, I still really enjoyed it. I saw more development in Isabelle’s dad than I did in her, which I think was really important. We do see some development in Isabelle and Garret, but I don’t think that was the most important part of the story.
The more important themes in the story are addiction, father -child relationships and class differences. Isabelle is the daughter of a congressmen who has tons of money. Garret is the son of a salvage yard owner and doesn’t have a ton of money. This plays a big role when their relationship becomes more than ballet instructor and student. Garret’s dad is an alcoholic and Isabelle’s mom died from a drug overdose.
I would have liked to have seen more scenes with Garret’s family, because we do get a nice amount of time with Isabelle’s dad.
This book had the perfect mix of romance, family life, friendship and everything else. It was a steamy romance without having to be straight out steamy, there were hints to the way the characters felt about each other sexually without it having to be written out. It was nice.
I would definitely recommend this book to fans of Catching Jordan or anyone who loves some sports romance.