The Goal by Elle Kennedy
Published 2023 · 96,250 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Romance
How hard is The Goal to read?
The Goal scores 23 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 24 out of 100
- Contemporary new adult romance written in plain, conversational language. Campus and hockey talk is the most specialized vocabulary on offer, close to Beach Read in accessibility.
- Sentence structure: 25 out of 100
- Sentences in a college romance of this kind run short and direct, with dialogue carrying much of the page. The structure sits near Beach Read's contemporary ease.
- Abstraction: 28 out of 100
- The story rests on concrete events: a one-night stand, an unplanned pregnancy, law school applications. Emotional stakes stay personal and direct, like It Ends with Us.
- Information density: 27 out of 100
- A plot-driven romance with a manageable cast, and a wider friend group that the series has already introduced. It reads at a comfortable pace, lighter than The Housemaid.
- Narrative indirection: 27 out of 100
- Romance conventions put feelings and motives on the surface. Sabrina's guarded past adds some withheld backstory, but what you see is largely what you get, as in Beach Read.
- Symbolic density: 14 out of 100
- A genre romance with a minimal symbolic layer. The story's meaning lives in its events and relationships rather than in recurring motifs.
- Ironic distance: 22 out of 100
- Humor from the friend group is warm and earnest. The book engages its emotions sincerely, in the manner of It Ends with Us.
- Resolution withholding: 20 out of 100
- Series romances in this mold promise an emotionally satisfying ending. Sabrina and Tucker's conflict is likely to resolve, in the genre-expected way of Beach Read.
- Structural complexity: 22 out of 100
- A linear romance following two leads through one school year, probably alternating their viewpoints. The structure is as simple as Beach Read's.
How The Goal is regarded
The Goal holds a literary regard score of 18 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.