BOOK REVIEW: The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams

Do you ever pick up a book that just brings joy into your life? That was how I felt reading The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams. This book is so much fun! Picture a group of alpha males trying to be better husbands and partners by learning more about women through romance books and Pinterest. Then imagine that the leading male is just the type of character that you want to reach through the pages and give a big encouraging hug. A witty, humorous, and heart-melting rom-com with touch of steam and a full supporting character cast to enjoy!

About the Book

The first rule of book club:
You don’t talk about book club.

Nashville Legends second baseman Gavin Scott’s marriage is in major league trouble. He’s recently discovered a humiliating secret: his wife Thea has always faked the Big O. When he loses his cool at the revelation, it’s the final straw on their already strained relationship. Thea asks for a divorce, and Gavin realizes he’s let his pride and fear get the better of him. 

Welcome to the Bromance Book Club.

Distraught and desperate, Gavin finds help from an unlikely source: a secret romance book club made up of Nashville’s top alpha men. With the help of their current read, a steamy Regency titled Courting the Countess, the guys coach Gavin on saving his marriage. But it’ll take a lot more than flowery words and grand gestures for this hapless Romeo to find his inner hero and win back the trust of his wife.

Reflection

The premise of this book already hooked me before I even picked it up. I loved the idea of men trying to get in the minds of women by spending time doing things that women like. The execution was even better than I expected! I laughed a lot through this one!

Gavin is a really great character. He has all of the right feelings, but he is clueless how to express them effectively. Through a lot of the first half, he does the exact wrong thing over and over again. Yes, he’s super attractive and successful, but the book works because Gavin has some other characteristics that make it understandable that he has confidence issues. The most prominent being his stutter.

I loved that the other characters, from Thea to his teammates, accept him without question, including his stutter. They don’t try to excuse it or ignore it. They encourage him when it surfaces and help him reset and get his words out. Gavin also lacks experience with women. He was quite sheltered in a way, being an awkward child and then devoting so much time to his career. He actually had to work up the courage to even ask Thea out, so it was believable that their fight would be difficult for him.

I felt that the book trailer makes it sound as though their physical challenges in the bedroom are the reason for their separation. To me, that undersells both the depth of their relationship, as well as the difficult problems they were facing. While her admission does spark the fight that sets the divorce in motion, the bigger issue to Thea and Gavin is that Thea has been faking other parts of their relationship too. Faking that she is happy in their communication and closeness as a couple. Faking that there aren’t issues when there absolutely are.

Adams drew a very real portrayal of marital issues, and as with many in real life, it seems the issues with her enjoyment of their sex life is related to her emotional disconnect more than an issue with physical chemistry. I actually found this book so refreshing, because outside of the laugh-out-loud moments, Adams brought us a couple whose path to reconciliation was not easy. This wasn’t a simple case of an orgasm-can-fix-this. Thea and Gavin have real issues to work through and they need to communicate much more openly than either is comfortable with. It also made their ultimate conclusion to their story authentic and deeply satisfying.

I found Gavin’s friends to be so wonderful as well. They didn’t gloss over his problems or laugh at him. When he was finally honest about what was happening with him and Thea, they were so supportive and it was a joy to read. The one part of this book that didn’t work as well for me was actually Thea’s sister Liv. I found Liv to be unnecessarily hateful towards Gavin, and her negativity really brought down the story at times. Interestingly, the next book in this series promises to focus on Liv and a man who I don’t believe we saw in this book. I’ll definitely read it because I loved this so much, and I think there is more to Liv than what we saw in this book.

Finally, on a happy note to end this on, there is a scene where the men try to understand Pinterest that had me laughing out loud. There is particular emphasis on them trying to understand the appeal of washi tape that I think will have almost every woman—whether that’s their thing or not—laughing along with the book!

If I did star ratings, this one would get all of the glowing stars from me! It brought happiness and laughs to my life! Thank you to Berkley for my copy. Opinions are my own.

About the Author

Lyssa Kay Adams is the pen name of an award-winning journalist who gave up the world of telling true stories to pen emotional romances. She’s also a diehard Detroit Tigers fan who will occasionally cheer for the Red Sox because her husband is from Boston.

Lyssa lives in Michigan with her family and an anxiety-ridden Maltese who steals food and buries it around the house and who will undoubtedly be a character in a future book.

Things Lyssa loves: Baseball pants, mashed potatoes, and that little clicking sound that scissors make on the cutting table at fabric stores.

Things she doesn’t love: Mean people, melting ice cream cones, and finding food in her underwear drawer.

Keep up with Lyssa on Twitter at @LyssaKayAdams. Please note: She mostly tweets about baseball pants and mashed potatoes.

http://www.lyssakayadams.com/