“This book does so well in striking that balance between enough content to be “adult” without tipping into “mature adult” “

~ Under the Covers

This is one of my new favourite rom-coms. Fair warning, there is plenty of descriptions of male on female oral sex, a leading male described as a “Prime Cut of Chicago Man Mean” and un-apologetically dirty humour, including several phrases like douche-bro, dip your wick, the reoccurring reference to the “Debbie Does Dallas style bush”, and, my favourite, BONE (a term which, in my mind, will always be heard as Cpt. Holt screaming “BONE” in the middle of the 99th precinct that season where the squad was working the night shift…). Have I caught your attention yet?

Not the Girl you Marry is a modern version of the How to Loose a Guy in 10 Days with reversed roles, starring Jack and Hannah.

Jack, aka Man Meat, is a writer working at an online magazine where he’s been relegated to doing the “How To” column – a wildly popular video series where he does fluff pieces like “How to Make your Lady Scream – for More Ice Cream, Because you’re Going to Make It” (yes, that is one of the titles). He desperately wants out and onto a “real” beat, but his boss wont let him until he does one more column: how to loose a girl by doing common stupid douche-bro moves.

Hannah describes herself as having ethnically ambiguous looks, body sense of humour, and a filthy mind. Hence much of the dirty humour. Hannah is an event planner, who has been successfully delivering the “booze, beer and boobs” events for the past few years, but wants to break into the wedding game in order to secure a promotion to VP at her firm. Only thing is, her boss doesn’t think she believes in romance, then subsequently challenges Hannah to try to keep a man for the next 2 weeks to prove she’s ready to take on the wedding gigs.

And therein lies the conflict: after a chance meeting at a bar one night, Jack starts dating Hannah while trying to ‘lose her’ and Hannah dates Jack trying to ‘keep him’, both trying to hold out long enough to get their respective promotions i.e. a recipe for a romantic comedy.

This book does so well in striking that balance between enough content to be “adult” without tipping into “mature adult” – reminds me of a book version of movies like “Friends with Benefits” and “The Ugly Truth”. Honestly, apart from the dirty humour, this tale is actually quite sweet. On one hand you’ve got Jack the self-proclaimed “perfect” boyfriend with his love of long-term relationships and his deep-seated mommy-issues. On the other, you’ve got Hannah who describes men as the enemy after a series of short-term flings with men end poorly. When you put them together, I feel like so many of their blind spots complement each other in such a good way, and they unknowingly force each other to face their respective issues. Plus their banter is on point. And I definitely laughed my ass off when Jack tries to pull the “I’m actually saving sex for marriage” card midway through their hook up in his attempt to convince her to dump him. Especially when it backfires and leads to some naughty business… Oh Jack. It was a good try. I guess.

    

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[about-author author=”Andie J. Christopher”]

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