All 5 Books in Elle Kennedy’s OG ‘Off Campus’ Series, Ranked
If you can’t get enough of Prime Video’s Off Campus and haven’t read the books, it’s time to enter the Elle Kennedy Universe. The author’s hockey college romance series started back in 2015. She sets up the world with The Deal‘s Hannah Wells (Ella Bright) and Garrett Graham (Belmont Cameli) before moving on to Logan (Antonio Cipriano), Dean (Stephen Kalyn), and Tucker’s (Jalen Thomas Brooks) respective love stories. Kennedy has since created a spinoff series about the younger generations — the Briar U quartet and Campus Diaries books — but the first five hold a special place in our hearts.
After The Deal, we have The Mistake, The Score, The Goal, and The Legacy, the latter of which serves as an epilogue for each couple. As much as we love each couple for different reasons, some of the stories stand out amongst the rest. They’re all written similarly, so how much we enjoyed them mostly came down to plot and characterization. So, whether you’re a longtime fan and want to debate your favorite Off Campus book in the comments below or you’re a newbie looking for guidance on which book to read first, you’ve come to the right place.
Swooon has ranked the five main books from worst to best. Don’t worry — we won’t go too far into spoilers if you’re planning on reading the books for the first time. Don’t forget to tell us your thoughts at the end of the page!
The Legacy
Elle Kennedy
It’s hard to compare The Legacy to the other four books because it’s a completely different format — novellas about each couple — but we’re throwing it in here anyway. We love Off Campus for the college setting, but The Legacy goes beyond that, addressing each couple’s future after graduation. While we’ll never get sick of these characters, sometimes the first happily-ever-after is enough.
In particular, we aren’t the biggest fans of Hannah and Garrett’s story, which is shocking considering how stellar they are in The Deal. It gives them a conflict that doesn’t make much sense for all they’ve already gone through, and Garrett says something so hurtful to Hannah that we try to block it out from our memory. At one point during the first read, we were even wondering if they should break up.
Had theirs and the other three stories been full books, maybe they would’ve felt more finished and developed, but they feel rushed. All in all, The Legacy just doesn’t offer as much charm as the main books, but it’s still worth the read if you want to revisit the characters.
The Goal
Elle Kennedy
Maybe we’re biased here because we aren’t the biggest fans of the surprise pregnancy trope, but we struggled with The Goal. Ambitious senior Sabrina has her sights set on attending a top law school and landing a high-paying job, escaping the poor conditions she’s dealt with her entire life. But when a one-night stand with the gentlemanly Tucker leads to a positive pregnancy test, her life is thrown off course. Sabrina refuses to let Tucker in, but he won’t give up on being part of her and his baby’s lives. He’s determined to win her heart, too.
Though it reads as smoothly as Kennedy’s other books, we found it hard to root for Sabrina and Tucker. They’re a little too opposite in their opposites-attract scenario. The guarded Sabrina is a tough nut to crack, and Tucker is just a little bit too earnest next to her. We wished he had challenged her a little more. Sabrina’s right that Tucker’s too perfect.
Plus, there comes a point when Sabrina’s insistence on pushing Tucker away goes on for a beat too long. We need equal down badness, even if it comes later for one of the characters, and it always feels like Tucker is more invested in Sabrina than she is in him. We love a “he falls first and harder” moment, but it feels rushed and one-sided. We’ll give The Goal some points, of course: The spice is only second to Allie and Dean’s. We were locked in on Sabrina and Tucker before the pregnancy, though they could have done with a little more relationship development early on. Tucker handles everything well and has zero red flags, which we love to see, but The Goal isn’t our cup of tea overall.
The Mistake
Elle Kennedy
With very few exceptions, we’ve never not had fun with a Kennedy book — but The Mistake took us longer to work through than the others. As much as we wind up loving Grace in the end, we have to admit that she comes across as fairly flat for a good portion of the book. Not that she needs trauma to make her interesting, but the book would’ve benefited from giving her a little more backstory and conflicts outside of Logan and her roommate/friend being awful to her.
Yeah, the titular mistake that Logan makes is pretty rough. To be fair to him, Logan is going through it: He soon has to take care of his family’s garage and alcoholic father, trading off with his brother, who’s been holding down the fort during Logan’s college years. He can’t live out his dream of playing pro hockey, so he’s pretty hopeless about the future. What’s more, Logan is crushing on Hannah, so he pushes Grace away when she becomes hopeful they could be something more. Though he comes back from it, Logan’s so clueless about his own feelings that it was pretty frustrating for most of the book.
Logan’s home life is such a dark cloud over his life that the book spends quite a bit of time on it. The sections of the book focusing on Logan’s family situation, while we understand they are important for his character development, are a bit tedious. But when the book gets into the list portion, it redeems itself. Grace gives him a series of wild tasks to earn her back. That’s a stellar rom-com premise if we’ve ever seen one. We ate it up.
In the end, we were still rooting for Grace and Logan to be together no matter what. We wish their friendship pre-mistake had been fleshed out more to make us a little more invested in them, but it’s still a solid entry in the Off Campus universe.
The Deal
Elle Kennedy
In our eyes, The Deal is very nearly tied with The Score, which you probably guessed by now, earned the top spot. Hannah and Garrett are the perfect couple to introduce anyone to the world of Off Campus, but, obviously, it tackles much darker themes overall than The Score does. Again, this largely comes down to personal preference, but we go for the lighter ones typically when picking romance books.
But that’s not to say that The Deal doesn’t offer enough swoonworthy romance and comedy. Garrett and Hannah probably have the best banter out of all the couples, and their progression from reluctant friends to lovers feels seamless. By the time they do become a couple, it feels earned. Kennedy’s pacing across all four couples’ books is solid, but The Score and The Deal are the best.
As is typical for the college romance genre, there are some cringy moments and pieces of inner dialogue — particularly from Garrett’s POV — but it doesn’t throw us out of the story. We’ve docked a few points, too, because it’s a smidge lower on the heat scale, and the conflict that Garrett’s dad creates between them feels forced towards the third act. But all in all, many of the reasons we love The Score (which you’ll find below) also ring true for The Deal. Most of Kennedy’s books, from the characters to the writing style, feel fairly similar, but we’re totally fine with that. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
The Score
Elle Kennedy
We had the most fun with The Score out of all five. That’s largely due to how likable Dean and Allie are, on their own and together.
Aspiring actress Allie isn’t sure about what path to take after college, and breaking up with her longtime boyfriend destabilizes her even more. She has a one-night rebound with campus playboy Dean Di Laurentis, but does her utmost best to stop it from going further. Dean is determined to continue their no-strings-attached fling, and feelings develop during the pursuit on both sides.
Dean’s, shall we say, overtly flirtatious personality doesn’t stop him from being the best leading man out of the main four. In addition to being the funniest, he has just enough depth to balance out his more breezy exterior. What’s more, though Dean and Allie have some baggage, most of their conflicts are rooted in the present. It not only keeps the plot moving but is a refreshing switch-up. They aren’t as complex as Hannah and Garrett, but that’s honestly preferable to us when it comes to books like these. We don’t need anything too ambitious.
We’d also be remiss not to point out that Dean and Allie are equally adventurous in the bedroom, making The Score the hottest out of all the books. We’ll admit it: That goes a long way for us. Who doesn’t love a slow burn while they’re having kinky, secret sex the whole time? That’s hot. But what really puts it above the rest is how well The Score balances comedy with the serious moments. It delivers iconic, laugh-out-loud scenes — the Winston and paperweight ones take the cake — but it handles the tragic ones well. (Even if that one gives us whiplash.)
