Wild Cards by Simone Elkeles

Synopsis
After getting kicked out of boarding school, bad boy Derek Fitzpatrick has no choice but to live with his ditzy stepmother while his military dad is deployed. Things quickly go from bad to worse when he finds out she plans to move them back to her childhood home in Illinois. Derek’s counting the days before he can be on his own, and the last thing he needs is to get involved with someone else’s family drama.

Ashtyn Parker knows one thing for certain--people you care about leave without a backward glance. A football scholarship would finally give her the chance to leave. So she pours everything into winning a state championship, until her boyfriend and star quarterback betrays them all by joining their rival team. Ashtyn needs a new game plan, but it requires trusting Derek—someone she barely knows, someone born to break the rules. Is she willing to put her heart on the line to try and win it all?


Opinion
When I found out that Simone Elkeles was writing I was so excited. She’s one of my favorite authors and I would read anything by her. So when Wild Cards finally came out I went out and bought it immediately.  And Simone didn’t disappoint me, I loved this book. It has everything that her other books have: strong characters, a great plotline, humor and chemistry.
I loved both of them, they both had their flaws and where ready to admit that which made them both realistic. Ashtyn is a female football player so she definitely knows how to stand her ground. But at the same time she’s a girl in every aspect and at times insecure about herself. And she got some issues concerning trusting others, with good reason. So when she meets Derek, the bad boy, she knows better than to trust him. But she can’t help thinking about him.
Derek like Ashtyn doesn’t let himself get close to anyone, afraid to get hurt. But that’s until he meets Ashtyn, brick by brick the wall he had built around himself falls apart. It might seem that he’s tough but that’s just a façade. Derek had this sweet side, he considered his stepbrother as if was his real brother. And he would do anything to help Ashtyn achieve her goals.
Both Ashtyn and Derek grew on me during reading this book, so I hope to see more of them during the other books in this series.
Like with all the other books I’ve read by Elkeles I was hooked after the first couple of chapters and I couldn’t put it down. So that again was prove for me that she’s one of the best YA contemporary authors out there.
The only thing that I missed in this book was the football. It’s a book about football players but still there was so little to find about football in this book. I hope to see more of it in the next books!

Extra
Title: Wild Cards
Author: Simone Elkeles
Series: Wild Cards
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Publication date: October 1st
Publisher: Walker Books for Young Readers
Pages: 342 (Hardcover)

El