I didn’t really enjoy this book.

There is so much I could say about this book. So much I want to say, but ultimately this book is too “meh” for me to even work up the energy to write out a full review. So, short review, no spoilers:

The author made some interesting (read: poor) choices with her premise. She inserts a few “twists” and “misunderstandings,” but doesn’t make good use of them. Her lack of commitment to these additions makes them feel poorly thought out and pointless. A few times they seem like glaring plot holes. I felt like she should have simplified her story since she wasn’t able to pull off all the extra (completely unnecessary) complexities.

The author relies on a lot of telling, rather than showing. A lot of that telling takes place in very long (seemingly endless) internal monologues and clunky dialogue between characters you don’t really care about.

The writing is repetitive. The characters think the same thoughts over and over. The author is repetitive with turns of phrase. The background of side characters (presumably main characters in other books in the series) are repeated frequently.

The romance was not engaging. The first chapter was the best it got. Once again, the author tells us how attractive these characters are and how attracted to each other they are, but I felt none of the actual spark you get with a good romance pairing. Also, given the blurb, I figured the book would probably contain some pretty good physical scenes. It contains a single first base, third base, and “home run” scene. All filled with their own issues and none that I found even slightly hot.

Finally, the narration. I know this book is supposed to be funny and clever, but the male narrator (Joel Froomkin) was better suited to straight farce. His accents and affectations definitely did not contribute to the idea of an attractive hero, though his narration of the hero’s grandmother was admittedly wonderful. Having him narrate a sex scene was…well, I doubt it was the intended effect.