Of course, if half their frats start falling in love with each other, the presidents of each would too. Head to Head brings us Jax, the hipster president of the Sigma nerds, and Rand, the soccer-playing, pre-MBA president of the jocks.
These two had the most hatred for each other than any of the other members of their frats and that’s just coming from them being background characters. The bulk of that seems to have been from Rand’s point of view, but even Jax loses his cool more often than not.
This book didn’t spend as much time with other members of the frats as the first two, but we did get to check in with Jesse and Dobbs from Schooling the Jock and Sean and Bubba from Coaching the Nerd. Most of it took place after the event so the first two with Jax and Rand trying to make their way from the quiz bowl championship to the flag football finale. Through happenstance, they end up carpooling and falling madly in love.
When you grow up in as big a family as I had, you learned not to want anything too desperately. Because sure as shit, some sibling would get there first. Or hold it out of your grasp just because they could. Not much was worth sweating over. (14)
We spend time with Jax’s family who is wonderfully quirky and hilarious. And we get to meet Rand’s horrible father and his long-lost sister. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Rand storyline as there seemed to be WAY too much going on. Not only was there the missing sister and newly discovered nephew, but there was an internship, an impending fiancé, an excessively wealthy manipulative dad who lied through his teeth, and the mother who died from a drug overdose.
That about which you’re sure, do immediately. That about which you’re unsure, put off as long as possible. (161)
We found out relatively early in the novel why Rand hates Jax so much, but it felt so contrived that even for a romance novel I rolled my eyes and I can usually take quite a bit.
The sex scenes were decent, with nothing too over the top or red flags. There were a couple of great scenes with Jax’s younger siblings, his sister is a hoot and I think she should’ve made more appearances! My favorite passing line of the novel was this one
Remember how we said that boys can go with girls or with boys, or with no one. Not everybody has to have a partner and it’s okay. (145)
I honestly have no idea who was saying this to whom. I think it may have been Rand’s sister to his nephew, but I’m not 100% sure. It just stood out to me because not only was it LGBT accepting, but it also had a not to asexuality/aromantic people in there too. Or that’s at least how I read it.
Recommendation: This was the weakest of the series. It honestly wasn’t too bad, it just didn’t have the fun, joy, and passion that the other three had. Easton and Lain also tried to do a little bit too much in this one. That’s a little ironic because the final book in the series, Betting on his BF, had, even more, going on, but it somehow worked better.
Opening Line: “The elevator doors parted and— Whoa. A sea of nerds.”
Closing Line: “And we all knew Sean was the smartest of us all. So maybe he was right.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)