Man Hands

I had quite high expectations for this book.

Why? No idea. After all, I’ve only ever read a few (three) of Sarina’s books, of which I had mixed opinions and none by Tanya. Maybe because of the fun cover? Or the silly, fun blurb? Guess it’ll have to forever remain a mystery.

To be completely honest, reading Man Hands was quite a frustrating experience. The story was super cutesy, funny and quirky, but at the same time had this sort of manic, hype, kid-on-a-sugar-high kind of vibe, that I couldn’t help but find unpleasant. There was a line about making popcorn without the lid on and how it goes flying everywhere, and that was the exact energy this book gave off.

On the plot development front things weren’t much better, the book felt quite rough around the edges. The dialogues were odd at times and kind of stilted, and the flow wasn’t very smooth.

Then there was also the fact that this novel featured two people in their mid to late thirties (Brynn was 34 while Tom was 38) that were childish af. They were both so immature. Their inner monologues were more along the lines of idiot teenager that giggles when they hear the word penis rather than full-fledged adult. It was annoying at best and off-putting at worst, to say the least, and it certainly got more irritating the farther along in the story I got. Here’s a lovey quote by Brynn, our very mature leading lady, to illustrate my point:

" "I love balls," I say, and draw out the word balls. Because I'm a teenager."

The sex was very un-sexy, too. Huge disappointment, there. There were too many jokes shoe-horned in for things to get properly steamy. I wish comedy would have taken a bit more of a backseat during those instances, because as things were, what we ended up getting was neither funny nor hot.

At the end of the day, this book was a kindle freebie that I got through Bookbub, so I can’t be too mad at it. Do I wish it would have delved deeper and not been so surface level? Yes. Do I wish Brynn and Tom would have acted their age? Also, yes. But I think this book never set out to be anything else than a mindless, silly romantic comedy, and it certainly hit the mark there. I still don’t think I’ll be going out of my way to read any more titles in this series, however.