The Play by Elle Kennedy
Published 2024 · 116,050 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Romance
How hard is The Play to read?
The Play scores 22 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
- A contemporary college sports romance written in plain, conversational language. Its vocabulary sits close to Beach Read and It Ends with Us, with no specialized or archaic diction.
- Sentence structure: 27 out of 100
- Series romances like this rely on short, direct sentences and banter-driven dialogue. The syntax resembles Beach Read's accessible contemporary structure.
- Abstraction: 28 out of 100
- The premise is concrete: a hockey captain, a school project and a romance. Like It Ends with Us, it works through personal experience and relationships rather than ideas.
- Information density: 28 out of 100
- At about 116,000 words, the book follows a plot-driven, single-thread romance. Its pace and density match Beach Read's comfortable, light reading.
- Narrative indirection: 24 out of 100
- Genre romance tells readers what characters feel and want. Like Beach Read, what you see is what you get, though one reviewer found a late plot turn abrupt.
- Symbolic density: 14 out of 100
- Campus sports romance runs on literal events like games, projects and attraction. Its symbolic layer is as thin as Beach Read's.
- Ironic distance: 24 out of 100
- Blurbs praise the humor and banter, which suggests playful, teasing dialogue. The tone stays sincere and emotionally direct, like It Ends with Us.
- Resolution withholding: 16 out of 100
- Standalone installments in a romance series promise an emotional payoff. Expect a genre-satisfying ending in the manner of Beach Read.
- Structural complexity: 20 out of 100
- The premise suggests a linear season-long arc. The structure is as simple as Beach Read's linear romance.
How The Play is regarded
The Play holds a literary regard score of 19 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.