This book generated so much buzz that I feared it will be tough to read it objectively: if I like it, am I allowing the majority view to sway my opinion? If I don't like it am I just the resident party pooper, bent on nitpicking everything? I figured I'd just rate and review by answering Did I like it?3.5 STARSBut rounding it up to 4 for the unexpected guffaws over Drew watching Beauty and the Beast and Matthew's modified Braveheart speech .I've been burned one too many times by GR and its herd mentality which results in much teeth gnashing, changing of username tags while screaming "Never Again!". Rinse. Repeat. This was a pleasant surprise.I did start to read this book through cynical eyes fully expecting to be disappointed. I spent the earlier half of the book comparing the narrator, Drew Evans (the New York Douche) to his exemplar equals Dante Walker (The YA Douche), Gabriel Merrick (The Elemental Douche) and Declan Foray (The Ghost Whispering Douche). Drew doesn't really offer anything new to the table, the plot was pretty predictable and in terms of handling relationships Kate isn't any better than Drew at all. I kept getting annoyed at Drew's attempts to making me laugh with his off-tangent remarks about EVERYTHING.But somewhere down the middle, Thanksgiving Dinner happened. This happened:Matthew chokes on the black olive in his mouth, which flies out and nails Steven right in the eye.Steven doubles over, holding his eye and yelling, "I'm hit! I'm hit!" and then goes on about how the salt from the olive juice is eating away at his cornea.Well sh*t, now I have to join the Emma Chase cult.I eased up a little more after that and eventually got to enjoy the book better than I expected.For all of Drew's faults at being a slut-shaming, chauvinistic, egotistical pig and Kate's epic fail at monogamy, I never got the feeling that this book was selling me something bigger than what's out in the open: It's a book about a player who met the girl of his dreams, falls in love and tries to win her trust and affection. Sex and Shenanigans. The Notebook and Braveheart. Sure Drew is an endless fountain of sage advice and bro philosophy but I never really get the sense that they were meant to be taken seriously.If anyone watches How I Met Your Mother, who gets offended by Barney Stinson? Really? (Though to be honest, Neil Patrick Harris may have A LOT to do with the love.)Other than the slut-shaming and the cheating and Drew's inexorable need to talk about his pecker I also didn't care for Drew's argument while he was trying to win Kate's affections towards the end. His absolute, titanium-grade certainty of what will happen forty, fifty years from that moment didn't fit with his realist views. For a guy who gives Disney so much grief, he started to sound too fantastical and I thought it was a step back from who he's been for the majority of the book. The eye-opening wonders of condom-less sex was pretty laughable but Drew owned up to it in the end so I guess I'm giving him a pass on that one.The secondary characters were pretty entertaining on their own. But it's still Steven who I think saved this book for me more than anything else.Steven is not the most handsome guy, nor the most suave. He's not a player; he never was. Then how did he manage to bag a prize like my sister, you ask?Confidence.As this turns out to be the first in the series (of course), I am fervently hoping the next one is between Steven and Alexandra. In college. If that would be set in the 90's I am so boarding that train.For a totally fluffy, entertaining read, this was pretty solid.
