Rowena’s review of The Boyfriend of the Month Club by Maria Geraci.
This sexy, funny new novel asks: Can a woman find a modern-day Mr. Darcy in Daytona Beach?
At thirty, Grace O’Bryan has dated every loser in Daytona Beach. After the ultimate date-from-hell, Grace decides to turn her dwindling book club into a Boyfriend of the Month Club, where women can discuss the eligible men in their community. Where are the real life twenty-first century versions of literary heroes such as Heathcliff and Mr. Darcy?Could it be successful and handsome Brandon Farrell, who is willing to overlook his disastrous first date with Grace and offers financial help for her parents’ failing Florida gift shop? Or maybe sexy dentist Joe Rosenblum, who’s great with a smile but not so great at commitment? Unfortunately, like books, men cannot always be judged by their covers…
What a fun book this turned out to be. I wasn’t in the mood for a Women’s Fiction book but I’m glad that I picked this one up to read because it ended up being a delightful story about a young woman who goes on a bad date and the chaos that comes after.
Grace O’Bryan is thrilled that she’s finally going on a date with Brandon Farrell, a guy that she is digging from her Thursday night Zumba class. She’s so excited to be going on this date that she dresses up and when her date ends up being at a sweaty pub with a whole lot of sweaty, raunchy, leering rugby men, she starts to get a little annoyed. I mean, there she is all dressed up in a cute, mini black dress (that wasn’t supposed to be so mini but still) and she’s squeezing past sweaty athletes who are dirty, disgusting and making fun of her family business.
Not the best date to be on and when your date doesn’t speak up for your family or tell his friends to quit making fun of your family business and your Dad, it’s understandable that she would want to ditch him and ditch him, she does….not before she spills the contents of a pitcher of beer over his lap.
So Grace leaves her date, seething mad at Brandon and she wants to vent about it with her friends so she heads over to her family’s place of business, Florida Charlies where her friends are meeting for their monthly book club and their book club turns into a boyfriend club and things heat up for Grace. On her date, she chips her tooth and gets in to the dentists office, first chance she gets and finds out that her long time dentist has retired and who is the new one? A guy that tried to pick her up at the sweaty, disgusting pub where she had that disastrous date with Brandon.
Throughout the book, Grace goes from being that annoying friend that assumes too much and you want to smack some sense into her to being the friend that you kinda wish you were. She was such a fun character and getting to know her was never boring. I ended up really liking her and I fell head over heels in love with Joe and was surprised that never once did I hate Brandon. With Brandon, I went from not really caring to what is this guy’s deal to awwww, that’s why I like you, haha.
What made this book really stand out were the secondary characters, they shined bright enough to make me sit up and take notice but they didn’t steal the spotlight from Grace and Joe. I adored Grace’s family, their Sunday Mass get together and dinner afterward, I enjoyed Charlie, Sarah (OMG did I enjoy those two), Penny and Butch and also Brandon. There’s a great mix of characters that bring out a delightful contemporary story with literary touches mixed in though I could have wrung Ellen’s neck when the boyfriend club kept getting bigger and bigger and then she started giving each boyfriend a literary name.
There were a few things in the beginning that got on my nerves, like Grace’s assumptions and then there was Ellen’s craziness that I wasn’t too thrilled about but for the most part, Geraci penned a great book about wonderful characters that leaped right off the page. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to fans of women’s fiction. It’s a treat!
Grade: 4 out of 5
This book is available from Berkley Trade.. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
Great review.
This book sounds like fun and just what I want to read right now.
Thanks Sabrina! It was a good book, you should definitely check it out.