Just One of The Guys

Just One of the Guys

by Kristan Higgins

 

Paperback, 376 pages

Published: August 01, 2008

Publisher:  Harlequin Books

ISBN:  9780373772995

Blurb: Being one of the guys isn't all it's cracked up to be...So when journalist Chastity O'Neill returns to her hometown, she decides it's time to start working on some of those feminine wiles. Two tiny problems: #1--she's five feet eleven inches of rock-solid girl power, and #2--she's cursed with four alpha male older brothers.

While doing a story on local heroes, she meets a hunky doctor and things start to look up. Now there's only one problem: Trevor Meade, her first love and the one man she's never quite gotten over--although he seems to have gotten over her just fine.

Yet the more time she spends with Dr. Perfect, the better Trevor looks. But even with the in-your-face competition, the irresistible Trevor just can't seem to see Chastity as anything more than just one of the guys...

This was recommended to me by a bibliophile friend and she said that it was amazing after I told her that I quite love reading chick-lit. It had been on my to-read list for about two years when I finally picked it up a couple of weeks ago. It was my first Kristan Higgins book and my expectations were real high with this one. Ah, read on…

The book starts out quite nice, in a way. With our protagonist – Chastity- being dumped by a guy at a restaurant is a starting scene written brilliantly by Kristan Higgins. Just perfect to grab the reader’s attention when the guy admits that he is dumping Chastity because she is too manly- in looks as well as actions. We’re told many a time through the book that she is broad-shouldered, athletic, five feet eleven inches and three-quarters. The monologues, the descriptions, the details are just perfect for the reader to connect to Chastity.

Chastity has come down to Eaton Falls giving up her amazing job in a big city to work at the local newspaper, Eaton Falls Gazette, and to be near her family in the town she has grown up. Moreover, Chastity is thirty and plans to settle down, and of course, she seems to have no great luck.

One of the strong points in this book is the grand character formation. Higgins might seem to have created a village of characters, but you won’t feel lost in them. She makes them alive, you see them living right before your eyes. Creating and successfully sustaining the huge family of Chastity in the reader’s hear right up to the end from the very beginning is a commendable job done by the author. It won’t have been as easy as it seems.

Rest, I don’t think there was much great to the book. It was supposed to be a laugh out loud kind of a read, but it failed miserably at that. I found it droning and droning and droning on and on and on. Even if the character formation is great, there is at times too much of the ‘family thing’ going on. An overdose, as you may call it. There are troubles in marriage and relationships all over this book which gives it a tinge of hopelessness. Higgins has also tried to as a spicy mystery to the plot by adding a fine number of twists, but she has failed at them too. Chasity seems to struggle too much with trivialities. Much more than she or the readers can handle. And that is what drove me to edge.

If I am to compare this with a Sophie Kinsella read, the act itself would be extremely absurd. I have read much better in chick-lit than Just One of the Guys and it doesn’t even remotely match their standards. It would be appropriate to say that if you want to see how a chick-lit can torture a lover of the genre, read this one. Otherwise, you know what to do, right? Yes, do yourself a favour and spare yourself the headache it could give you.