{"id":19898,"date":"2017-03-27T14:34:51","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T18:34:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=19898"},"modified":"2025-06-06T12:28:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T16:28:20","slug":"review-the-friend-zone-game-on-2-kristen-callihan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=19898","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Friend Zone (Game On, #2) Kristen Callihan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buy: Kindle Ebook<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Paperback<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Review<\/strong><\/h4>\n

5 \u201cSpecial Sauce and Cupcake\u201d stars!<\/p>\n

“There is one absolute truth. The sum of my existence equals you.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Friend Zone<\/i> by Kristen Callihan is an excellent friends-to-lovers story full of heart, humor, and heat! This fantastic addition to the Game On<\/i><\/a> series delivered a memorable story that had me grinning from ear to ear.<\/p>\n

We first meet Gray in The Hook Up<\/i><\/a> loving life and living it to its fullest. He\u2019s having fun parting, playing football, and enjoying women, and he has no desire to change things up. When he is left carless, he would have never imagined that Ivy, the owner of the car loaned to him to drive, would give him a reason to change his ways.<\/p>\n

An unlikely friendship forms between Gray and Ivy over a bubblegum pink car and a whole slew of text messages while she is away in London, and Gray isn’t prepared when he finds himself face to face with the girl who has been consuming his thoughts.\u00a0The girl who has somehow gotten under his skin. The girl he calls a friend when he doesn’t have friends who are female.<\/p>\n

Living in the moment is getting harder to do. I find my attention wandering to the future. I find myself wanting that distant future now. Here. Because of Ivy McKenzie.
\n…she’s become essential – a bright spot in my life.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I loved this book!!! The prologue sucked me in and I was hooked. A wonderful mix of heavy and light moments, this story is full of emotion, humor, heart, and steam, all of which are perfectly woven together.<\/p>\n

I loved Gray and Ivy together as well as individually. They were well developed, interesting, and relatable. Gray is a known player. We saw it in the first book and I was so intrigued with his reformation into a \u201cone woman\u201d man and boy does he change. The moment Ivy texts her way into his life he was addicted. I liked him in The Hook Up<\/i> but I love him now, flaws and all. He is a talented football player but he is also super smart, funny, and easygoing. He’s protective and supportive and cares so much about the people in his life. He is vulnerable and complex and\u00a0his past hurt my heart. But his loyalty and love warmed me fully, and I loved that he knew when to be gentle as well as when to take control.<\/p>\n

Ivy is smart, witty, strong, and independent. She has a great personality, a kind heart, and is someone I\u2019d love to know in real life. She is genuine and beautiful inside and out. Her feelings toward Gray are overwhelming and realistic and\u00a0I loved getting in her head.<\/p>\n

What I feel for Gray? It isn\u2019t comfortable. It\u2019s so intense and so enormous, sometimes I fear my soul can\u2019t contain it.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The way their relationship progressed was well-paced and believable. I loved that it began with texts and that neither really knew much about the person on the other end of the line. They were able to be themselves and form a strong bond based on who they were on the inside instead of what they saw on the outside forming a friendship that was easy and true. I loved the trust and honesty that grew between them and how safe they felt with each other.<\/p>\n

The banter is terrific and the delicious sexual tension increases the more they dance around their desires. It\u2019s a slow burn romance and when they finally cross the line, it is erotic and intense.\u00a0 Talk about a heart pounding, breath-hitching moment! Gray and Ivy are hot together. Their love is passionate, powerful, and all consuming, and I felt it completely.\u00a0 The emotion was well written and the feels totally affected me. Their relationship wasn\u2019t perfect but it was realistic and I loved the support, devotion, and tenderness shared between Gray and Ivy no matter what challenges they faced.<\/p>\n

Overall, this is another entertaining new adult romance with an epilogue that gave us a gorgeous glimpse into Gray and Ivy\u2019s future. If you haven\u2019t read this book, grab it today! It\u2019s one of the best friends-to-lovers books I\u2019ve read!<\/p>\n

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The Game On series<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"\" \u00a0\"\" \u00a0\"\" \u00a0\"\"<\/h4>\n

The Hook Up (#1)\u00a0<\/strong>(Drew & Anna)
\nReview<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0Amazon<\/a> |\u00a0Paperback<\/a><\/p>\n

The Friend Zone\u00a0(#2)\u00a0<\/strong>(Gray & Ivy)
\nReview<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0Amazon<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Paperback<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Game Plan\u00a0(#3)\u00a0<\/strong>(Dex & Fiona)
\nReview<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0Amazon<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Paperback<\/a><\/p>\n

The Hot\u00a0Shot (#4)\u00a0<\/strong>(Finn & Chess)
\nReview<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0Amazon<\/a>\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0Paperback<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buy: Kindle Ebook\u00a0|\u00a0Paperback Review 5 \u201cSpecial Sauce and Cupcake\u201d stars! “There is one absolute truth. The sum of my existence equals you.” The Friend Zone by Kristen Callihan is an excellent friends-to-lovers story full of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","yasr_overall_rating":5,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,65,13,9,29],"tags":[613,400,48],"class_list":["post-19898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feeeeeeels","category-lol-funny","category-new-adult","category-romance","category-steamy","tag-game-on","tag-kristen-callihan","tag-review"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/THe-Friend-Zone.jpg?fit=150%2C234&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gaNL-5aW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}