Girl Abroad

By: Elle Kennedy

Narrated by: Georgina Sadler

Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times bestselling author Elle Kennedy brings her signature angst, drama, and humour to a new standalone romance.

When nineteen-year-old Abbey Bly gets the opportunity to study abroad for a year in London, it's the perfect chance to finally slip out from under the thumb of her beloved but overbearing retired rock star father. She's ready to be free, to discover herself - but first off, to meet the girls she's rooming with. That is, until she arrives at her gorgeous new flat to discover those roommates are actually all boys. Charming, funny, insufferably attractive boys. And off-limits, with a rule against fraternizing between housemates after unwanted drama with the previous girl.

Abbey has never considered herself a rulebreaker. But soon, she's lying to her father about her living situation and falling for not one, but two men she can't have: her rugby-player roommate and a broody musician with a girlfriend. Not to mention, her research for school has gotten her tangled in a deeply hidden scandal of a high nobility family, surrounding her in secrets on all sides.

If there's any hope of Abbey finding love, answers, or a future in London, she'll have to decide which rules - and hearts - might be worth breaking...

©2024 Elle Kennedy (P)2024 Hachette Audio UK

A super cute start to a fun new series

👉🏻 Read if you like: coming of age stories, UK setting, love triangles, strong friendships, underlying mysteries

What was so fun about this book is the merging of several unique genres including romance, friendship fiction, mystery and women’s fiction but all within the umbrella of New Adult. After all, at its core, this is a coming of age story about a young woman navigating her way through the world with newfound independence.

While love triangles are, admittedly, not my favorite trope, I had a clear preference in this one and as a result, that preference gave me a rooting interest. At a certain point I was racing to the end, desperate to know what would become of our MCs. I felt so personally invested in my favorite pairing and would not accept any other resolution. Thankfully things worked out as I had hoped.

With strong themes of friendship, a steamy romance scene or two (okay maybe more 😉) and that feeling of fresh adulthood and all the wonderful experiences that go along with that, Elle Kennedy has the perfect recipe for a fun new romance series. I do not know if this is set to be a series, but boy do I sure hope it is.

Wish I Loved This

I just want to preface this by saying I am a massive Elle Kennedy fan. I own multiple physical, audio, and kindle versions of her books. This particular book just completely missed the mark for me. I wish I loved it, because I preordered a signed copy, but it was just a huge miss.

This story is a single, first person POV told from the perspective of Abbey Bly, a 19 year old girl who is studying abroad in London for her sophomore year of college. We quickly learn that Abbey is the daughter of a massive rockstar turned overprotective father. He does not want her to study abroad, but Abbey feels like she needs to be out on her own for once in her life and have an adventure. This adventure happens to include a love triangle, a scandal with a Lord, and a fair amount of angst.

The premise is great and it all sounds very promising. But as the story is told, it just fell so absolutely flat. The main issue I had was with the love triangle. I prefer a love triangle to a why choose, but this was mostly a why choose with her decision coming in literally the last chapter of the book. Abbey goes on and on about how she needs to choose one, but she feels the exact same way about both boys for 99% of it. The book is an extremely quick read and with that, I feel like there was not enough time to get to know each of the boys and actually form an opinion as to who she should choose. I wasn’t even devastated for one of them in the end because they were practically the same person, but with different fonts. Just two boys with commitment issues. We did not get to see her and the boy she chooses together without a third party in the mix until the epilog, and that basically just gave us a recap of a trip they took together.

Abbey is a bit of a pick me girl. She is constantly saying that she has ordinary looks and is nothing special, but almost every guy in the book wants to be with her. She’s also a nerd who loves libraries and history and has almost no female friends at all. She is also constantly complaining about how she doesn’t want people to know about her father and wants to have her own adventures, but then immediately tells the group of friends who her father is and tells grand stories about him constantly.

This book reads like a YA, but it does contain mature scenes with both boys separately. There is defiantly cheating in this book too, if not physical than emotional with intent to act.

This audio version would have been much better with a bigger cast. One female doing the voices of many men with different accents made it a little hard to figure out who was speaking. She did a good job on the accents though. I could immediately tell someone was Australian. It also came across a little like she was just reading from a page rather than telling her own story. It just fell flat.

Overall, if you don’t mind a quick read why choose disguised as a love triangle, this could be the book for you. I am a bit disappointed by this one though and I sadly won’t be rereading any time soon. It was just missing the classic Elle Kennedy banter and spark that she has within her Off Campus and Briar U series’.

Tropes:
Love Triangle
Study abroad
Roommates
Rugby player
Boy in a band

TW:
Cheating-emotional with intent to act (FMC and one of the love triangle boys)
Loss of a parent
Drug use

Cute story, interesting characters

I love Elle Kennedy books but I struggled with this one due to the narrator. The accents were off putting and the main character came off even younger than the 19 years she is in the book.

Wanted to live this!

I have been eagerly waiting for this new Elle Kennedy book and honestly skipped to the last chapters cause I was bored and just wanted to know who she ended up with… honestly half way thru and I was so bored… my all time fav is The Deal and between the single POV narration and the dragged on storyline I so disappointed… hoping the Dixon Rule dose not disappoint… Graham Effect was amazing! But maybe author needs to stick to hockey romances

So excited! Wanted to love this book.

Loved The Graham effect and all the previous books, but I couldn’t even finish this book.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love that there was no clear ending in sight. With all the twists and turns I just had to keep reading to figure out the mystery and who she’d end up with. It was touch and go for a while and very entertaining that there was no clear “winner”. I’d very much like a book about Jamie now.

Something new and wonderful from Elle Kennedy

I'm a huge Elle Kennedy fan. Girl Abroad has all the wit and charm or her usual books, But this one was so much more than an angsty new adult romance. It's a coming of age story with found family, a bit of mystery and mroe!

Fan-freaking-tastic🥰

I absolutely loved everything about Abbey’s journey to finding peace with her own story! I loved the Josephine mystery…and I absolutely loved that my guy is the one Abbey picked🥰

Georgina did a fan-freaking-tastic job either the story & accents!