Review: The Pact by Karina Halle

The Pact was such a breath of fresh air!

The Pact is a novel that follows two best friends, Linden and Stephanie, from ages 21 to 30, and their evolving relationship. Linden and Stephanie make a pact when they are 25 that they will marry each other if they aren't in serious relationships by the time they reach thirty years old. Needless to say, I completely adored this book! It wasn't perfect, but I had such a fun experience reading it. One of my favorite tropes in literature is when best friends fall in love with each other, and this story was great.

I have never read a story that had a premise quite like The Pact. Throughout the novel, the novel made me feel so many different emotions. The Pact was passionate, sexy, fun, and even at times, deep. There was never a slow moment; I was up until three in the morning reading this! Stephanie and Linden great chemistry throughout the whole entire story, even when they were just friends. I really loved how we got to see them grow throughout the novel and saw their different relationships before each of them settled down. A lot of people don't really like how both Linden and Stephanie were in an array of different relationships before finding each other, but I liked it. Each relationship they had always ended because their partner was missing something that was vital. I saw their failed romantic relationships with other people a stepping stone for the two coming together. What their exes didn't have, Steph or Linden did.

The only point of the plot that I was a bit thrown off on was how explicit the novel is. I knew that it was a new adult book, but I didn't look into the book before I bought it, since it was the middle of the night and cost only 99 cents. Be aware that this novel has more detailed sex scenes than you might expect from your classic new adult novel, like those from Colleen Hoover. The Pact does follow Stephanie and Linden when they are in the new adult ages, but follows them in their late twenties as well, where the bulk of the novel takes place. Just know that beforehand. I didn't necessarily have an issue with the sex scenes. Every relationship that Stephanie and Linden are in a healthy, consenting adults. While they might border on erotic, I think that the scenes were classy and really showed the reader their relationship on all aspects.

One thing I really loved about The Pact was just the way it progressed. There wasn't any time that felt slow nor rushed; the pace was steady throughout. Nowadays, I see novels that have the climax of the book and either end there so that the audience has to read the second one, or the ending itself is messily put together. For this, we actually got and exposition, rising action(s), climax, falling action(s), and denouement. Thank goodness! I would put the praise emoji here if I could.


The characters besides Stephanie and Linden were so well developed. I am seriously thinking about picking up the companion novel of this, The Offer, which follows one of Stephanie's best friends and single mom, Nicola, with Linden's brother, Bram. There is also another novel coming out in this series, The Play, that centers around Linden's cousin. One of my favorite characters is Penny, the girlfriend of one Stephanie and Linden's other best friend, James. The dynamics among all of the secondary characters and the main ones were so great. The friendships felt actually real. All of them had their ups and downs, but in the end, they always supported each other.

If you're hesitant to pick up The Pact, don't be! The characters are fleshed out, Stephanie and Linden have great chemistry, and the plot is near perfect. If you are prepared for the explicit scenes, then I defniitley recommend this novel!

With that, I give this book

4.2 Stars!

What are some of your favorite new adult books of this year? Here's a list I made back in September of the Best New Adult Books I read this year up to then! If I read this before that post, this would have for sure made the list.  Thanks for stopping by! I'll see you guys soon with another post!

Genni @ Ready, Set, Read!