3.4

This book was decent. I usually try to stay away from books with a plotline like this, because I always feel like the book does not do it justice. Sometimes unnecessary added drama is involved or I feel distanced as a reader and do not really connect to the story. However, I did enjoy this one. Every aspect of the plot fit the story. Also, we got to see the individual character’s grow. I understood their motives and reasoning for doing what they did.

One issue I had with this story is that the pacing was extremely slow in the beginning. Since the main plot is spoiled in the summary, I kept waiting for it to happen. It finally happened around 50%. If it had not been spoiled, I would have been okay with that because it would have been unexpected. However, it was. And like mentioned earlier, I kept waiting for it to happen, which made the beginning of the book drag on.

Another issue I encountered was that there was no concept of time. Time moved extremely fast in some places and slow in others. It was hard to see how much time has passed, and it felt kind of jumpy. With a story like this, I feel progression is an important main aspect to the plot.

Characters

I enjoyed the main characters. I thought they were flushed out nicely. And I also enjoyed seeing them grow. They fit nicely together. I enjoyed that Sabrina mentioned that it was not love at first sight for her. This was very nice because it destroyed the instalove trope.

Tucker was a sweet heart. He was extremely mature, and I really liked him as a character. I liked that Sabrina was so focused on her dreams. In the book and in some reviews, a lot of people had problems with her, but I liked her.

I had read the other books in this series, however, I do not entirely remember names or storylines. So when past characters kept showing up, I had no idea who they were. I can’t really credit this as a con because it is mainly my fault, but I felt like there were too many side characters. I think that if I had been dedicated to this series it would not have bothered me because I would know them. But I’m not so it felt cluttered with random characters who were supposed to seem familiar.

Although it is not necessary to read the other books in the series, I would recommend that you do if you plan to read this one. Simply because of the character appearances, and also because this plot sort of begins and takes place in The Score.

Final Analysis

The Goal offers a great romance with two likeable characters. The character development is good. It does feel a little jumpy at times, and it could be deemed as too cluttered with characters. However, it is a decent book.