Playing the Player by Lisa Brown Roberts

Published: August 18th, 2015

Publisher: Entangled Teen

Copy: Entangled Teen

Summary: Goodreads

Trina Clemons needed the money. Why else would she - the most organized, prepared student in school - spend the summer as a nanny and partner with the biggest slacker ever? Now she's ready to tackle nannyhood with her big binder of research and schedules. Just don't ask her about the secret job of "fixing" the bad habits of a certain high school player...

Slade Edmunds prefers easy hook-ups, and Trina is definitely not his type. She's all structure and rules, while Slade wants to just have fun. Fortunately, Trina has no idea about the bet Slade made with his best friend that he can totally get her to unwind by the end of summer...

Then the weirdest thing happens. There's chemistry. A lot of it. 
But nothing gets between a boy and a girl like a big, fat secret...

As I'm sure I've said before, I don't read a lot of teen contemporary romance novels, and I think I have finally come to realize why.  They make me feel old!  I'm reading these books from my 'advanced' perspective and so many of the decisions, reactions and comments seem foolish.  Well of course they would to me, (I am a grandmother now)  with my 'been there, done that, learned my lesson and now I know better, outlook'.  I'm looking at all of the situations through eyes that have learned from my mistakes and generally know when not to over-react or criticize.  So I decided to try and look at Playing the Player from a less jaundiced point of view and try to remember what it was like all those years ago, and you know what?  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Written with alternating POV's we are getting to 'hear' the story from both Trina and Slade's sides and see exactly how the characters feel about each other and their actions.  There definitely is some chemistry between the two of them and we see that no matter how much they fight against it chemistry wins.  Trina's need for organisation was somewhat endearing, and Slade's love of a certain type of movie was hilarious (no spoilers here!).

The secondary characters, Desi, Alex, Gillian and Max, were all nicely rounded out. I had to laugh out loud at Gillian's (Gilly's) propensity for having 'naked days' and there was some nice non-stereotypical traits with the two younger kids that I loved. There are no surprises in Playing the Player, but the journey was fun and this will make a great quick read for fans of the genre.

One thing I have to add however.  I love the cover, it's cute and summery and romancy, but why does the guy on the front have short hair when a big part of Slade's character is his long hair that he ties back with a shoelace? Think Heath Ledger  in '10 Things I Hate About You'. Sometimes covers just baffle me.