The Charlie Method

Campus Diaries, Book 3

De: Elle Kennedy

Narrado por: Teddy Hamilton, Persephone Lee, Sean Masters

The third in the steamy, hilarious Campus Diaries series by New York Times bestselling author Elle Kennedy, set in the same world as Off Campus and Briar U.

College senior Charlotte Kingston is living two lives, and she's nailing both of them. By day, she's the perfect sorority girl, a STEM student in biomedical engineering, and the adopted daughter of an overachiever family. At night, she's Charlie: a risk-taking daredevil looking for fun who finds herself chatting on a dating app with two anonymous hotties.

Will Larsen may seem like the breezy boy next door, but his congressman father is a constant thorn in his side. After a scandal hits another Division 1 hockey program, Will's dad is determined to distance his son from it, hiring a journalist to prove how squeaky-clean Will and his team are. Which means the last thing Will wants is for anyone to find out he and his best friend Beckett Dunne - a laidback Aussie shielding secret heartache - sometimes share girls in the bedroom.

When Charlie finally meets them in person and realizes she's been chatting with two gorgeous Briar U hockey players, things get steamy fast. But all their messy secrets are piling up, and real life soon threatens to shatter the fantasy. With Charlie, Will, and Beckett all coming to terms with what they want and what others want for them, difficult decisions will need to be made.

Especially when lust starts to look a lot like love.

©2025 Elle Kennedy Inc. (P)2025 Elle Kennedy Inc.

LOVE DUAL READING

When each character speaks their lines, it elevates the story that much more! Beautiful characters and exquisite story! Must read!

Loved it!

I enjoyed the story and how it wasn’t one dimensional. It dealt with multiple topics outside of the love story. I am hoping there is a book about one side character in particular but to avoid spoilers, I won’t say who. Narration was fantastic. 🎧

So damn perfect

I loved this performance, especially since it was a duet style narration. I was foaming at the mouth from how good this sounded. Ugh my heart was swooning!

Great narration, bad story

The worst of Elle Kennedy. I came with great expectations, and they were ruined. The audiobook was better though because of the amazing narration.

The story line was all over the place

I was super excited for this book, especially reading about Beckett and Will's story. They are hands down my favorite two side characters in the series, and i had real high expectations but it just didn't deliver.. it just felt flat.

I had fun in the first half but then the second half it just gets all a bit repetitive, and the story line was all over the place.
First - the adoption part was really necessary? I don't think it really added anything to the story and felt more of a distraction than anything.
The spice - was definitely there but again, it just got a bit repetitive towards the end.. and I wanted more.
The story has so many random bits thrown into it that dragged the story on for far too long that it got boring way too quickly, and the spice unfortunately couldn't save it.

Not my favorite of the series

This book was ok, but I like The Dixon Rules the best. I wasn’t feeling the connection between Will, Charlie, and Beckett.

The Perfect Ending!!

I didn’t want this series to end. I love when authors do second generation books with their beloved characters. I was super excited for this book as I’m a sucker for any why choose romance novel! And the smut in this one did not disappoint! I was sweating reading this one. I listened to the audiobook simultaneous. And let’s just say I was floored. Teddy Hamilton never disappoints, and Sean and Persephone surprised me in the best way. I felt Charlie’s struggle with perfectionism as it’s something I struggling with in my own life. To see that accurately represented on the page was amazing. The chemistry between Will, Beckett, and Charlie was superb!!

Definitely a must read for all fans of Elle’s Off Campus series and her Briar U. I think my favorite moments were Dad Chat with everyone being featured.

Amazing!!!- especially the duet narration

This has been my favorite book out of the series! I loved the main characters and the unconventional relationship dynamics. I am also so pleased that this was recorded in duet style narration- it completely enhanced the listening experience.

Trigger warning for adoptees

First, I’m in the process of reading right now. Trigger warning for adoptees—this touches on search and reunion, as well as adoption-related complex trauma.

I’m giving Elle Kennedy some serious side-eye right now. I love her writing, but I am beyond exhausted by authors who write about adoptees without a shred of understanding—no research, no grasp of the trauma, and certainly no awareness of what it means to come “out of the fog into adoptee consciousness” (Branco, S.F., Kim, J., Newton, G., Cooper-Lewter, S.K., & O’Loughlin, P., 2022). The dominant narratives in adoption stories almost always belong to adopters and the adoption industry, while adoptees themselves are often used as plot devices rather than fully realized characters. Using adoptee experiences as a convenient source of drama—without exploring the actual nuances of what it means to live without cultural connection or biological mirroring—is both lazy and ignorant.

The healing process of being an adoptee is complex, yet time and time again, we’re reduced to one-dimensional characters whose only defining trait is gratitude. Meanwhile, adoptive parents are framed as one-dimensional saviors who can do no harm or wrong—despite the fact that they participated in a system that, at its worst, functions as human trafficking, and at its best, deals in cultural erasure and deep trauma for adoptees, while parenting from spaces of adoption incompatance. I just wish more authors would take the time to understand adoptee mental health before crafting these narratives.

That said, this one feels slightly different so far. The way spiraling is described actually resembles adoption-related complex PTSD, which is rare to see. But let’s be real—I will challenge the idea that most adoptive parents respond well to reunions initiated by the person they adopted, especially in closed adoptions where adoptive parents have done nothing to support the adoptee’s experience of cultural reclamation, identity development, or biological connection.

(Spoiler-ish thought ahead) Charlie has to guess what will happen if she searches, rather than it being an expected and regular part of family conversations and culture. That uncertainty speaks volumes, it’s a glaring indication of how little space she has been given to process her origins, and how the unspoken expectations her adoptive family has shaped her fears around her reunion experience. (End of spoiler-ish though.)
Writing about a marginalized group without authentic research or understanding isn’t just lazy—it’s dangerous. Fingers crossed that Elle Kennedy did her homework and spoke to actual adoptees about their stories. We’ll see. I’ll come back and update this review, and I am hoping with all my soul that this book holds space for adoptee character development—one grounded in reality and critical thinking.

Book 3

I am a fan of Elle Kennedy's books. This one was good, but not as good as her other books. Teddy Hamilton was great as always!