Is 'Act Cool' Worth Reading?

Hazel Pierce has always lived in the shadows, nerdy, invisible, and secretly crushing on the one guy she should never have fallen for– her stepbrother, Trey Rivers. When her secret is nearly exposed on campus, her enemy and the hockey team’s resident bad boy, Jaxon Carter comes to her rescue but not without a prize. He makes her an offer to fake date him to kill the gossip in exchange to improve his grades. He’s cocky, reckless, and dangerously charming. And worst of all he knows how to make her heart race What starts as a simple deal quickly spirals out of control. They promised no feelings, but what happens when their truth is bigger than the rules? When Hazel’s true identity is revealed. She must decide if loving him is worth the risk as she reclaims her true voice and identity.

She is focused, disciplined, and determined to survive her first year at university. He is reckless, irresistible, and the most notorious athlete on campus. When fate throws them together, sparks fly and rules are broken. Falling for the bad boy athlete was never part of her plan, but resisting him could cost her everything. Secrets, rivalries, and a dangerous attraction push them to the edge. Can love survive when their worlds are at war?

One punch turned the campus “Ice King” into a national pariah, and now the only person who can save his career is the girl who wants to see him fail. Leo Thorne had it all: captaincy, NHL scouts, and a reputation as untouchable. But when a rival player targets the one wound that never healed, Leo snaps. The viral footage labels him violent, unstable, and dangerous, and suddenly the future he built on the ice begins to collapse. Maya Ellison, a sharp-tongued film student, wants nothing to do with athletes, especially Leo. To her, he’s arrogant, spoiled, and worshipped for all the wrong reasons. But when her scholarship and senior project funding are threatened, she’s forced into an impossible deal: direct a reality-style redemption series designed to fix Leo’s image. The catch? The university announces that Maya is Leo Thorne’s secret girlfriend. Now they’re trapped in a fake relationship built for cameras, clicks, and damage control. Between staged dates, scripted interviews, jealous rivals, and producers hungry for drama, Maya and Leo spend more time fighting than flirting. “I can’t stand you,” Maya snaps after another disastrous shoot. Leo smirks, stepping closer. “Funny. I was about to say the same thing.” But somewhere between the lies and the spotlight, the act starts feeling dangerously real. Maya begins to see the grief Leo hides behind the Ice King mask, while Leo realizes the only person who refuses to worship him might be the only one who truly sees him. In a world where every touch is staged and every kiss is content, falling in love could ruin them both. Or it could be the one thing that finally saves them.

Hailey May Collins is the school's cool girl; Smart, confident, mysterious, and intimidating. Everything that she does is admired by everybody, even by the way she walks or talks. Everybody worships her. But her cool-girl personality is nothing but a mask to hide her true self - a nervous and paranoid teen who's constantly worried about her social status. But even though she's having a hard time putting on her mask, she would gladly play along until after her senior year. That is until she discovered the secret of the Student Council students, whose real identities are The Pandorgriffs. The most popular girl and boy band of the year. Now, everywhere she goes, they follow her like a stalker. But what’s worse than having famous stalkers? It's when they find out about her secret as well.

“He said he was just helping me rehearse... So why was I moaning his name backstage with his hand under my skirt?” Harriet Avery is the school’s invisible girl: brilliant, overweight, and bitter from years of bullying. But when her name appears as the lead in the school play—thanks to a cruel prank everything changes. Nick Marsh, the cocky captain of the hockey team, unexpectedly offers to help her. Their rehearsals are supposed to be harmless. But heat builds under stage lights. Chemistry simmers behind closed doors. And soon, Harriet is glowing—inside and out. She’s falling. Hard. But the cruelest twist comes after the curtain falls: the entire thing was a dare. Now with her heart broken, Harriet has two choices: fade into the background like she always has… or finally step into her own spotlight and set fire to everything that tried to break her.

Reputation is more like a currency in Minerva's high. But ‘perfect’ Vienne Reyes seem to be going bankrupt recently, especially since her boyfriend chose to humiliate her by through a public breakup. As though that wasn't enough, he got together with her spiteful ex-best friend who would do anything to get her trampled on. Beautiful, good grades, perfect social standing, big family name, but these all seem to be mocking her after Ryan Knox broke up with her and gave the elite students of Minerva's high school chance to gossip about her. Mortification and emotional disruption had lead her to the club where she got ‘entangled’ with a boy and the scene got captured. Key in Damon Calloway; blunt, cold and nonchalant. One of the school's brooding scholarship kid and basketball star who wouldn't want to have anything to do with the elite kids and their drama; infact he looks down on them even with his tanking grades. Vienne wouldn't back down with a fight; she wants her boyfriend back, hence the fake-dating proposal with Calloway as a result of the pictures. Fake dates, hangouts, pictures, and all in exchange for tutorial sessions. Through snide remarks, playful bants, jabs, inevitable proximities, no one knew when the line between fake and reality began to get blurry. Gossips, aristocrats, schemes, romance, twists and secrets, would the two be able to get through? ‘ Ryan was looking over? Was he really? Right at the moment, I could truly feel the heat of his gaze on the back of my neck. “Is he still looking?” “Yeah” I adjusted my hair, not knowing why I was getting unnecessarily giddy. “I don't have a food scrap on my lips right? Do I look pretty enough?” A few seconds passed before his deep low voice rasped out. “Gorgeous…” ‘