Y’all, I’ve been meaning to write this post for A WHILE. Like, a week, so it’s not so bad, but the days have been busy, making the weeks fly by! But here I am, and I LOVED this book a lot!
In The Bromance Book Club, professional baseball player Gavin Scott’s marriage is in trouble. His wife of several years, Thea, asked him for a divorce right before asking him to leave the house they’ve shared. Why? There were several reasons, but the big one was the fact that he hadn’t been giving her the big O for… they’re entire relationship. Her pointing this fact out to him damaged his pride, which damaged their marriage… possibly irreparably. But never fear! The Bromance Book Club is here to save them.
Several members of Gavin’s team, plus some other big names in Nashville, are part of a book club where the guys read romance novels in order to figure out how to save their relationships. Gavin is skeptical, but he goes along with it. It doesn’t take long for him to see how badly he’d been messing up for a long time.
Meanwhile, Thea Scott is determined to get her life back, and she’s sure that being the wife of a baseball player isn’t the life that she was destined for. She doesn’t fit in with the other wives and she misses her old self. She thinks striking out on her own is the answer… until she starts to see how hard Gavin is truly trying to fix their fledgling marriage. It doesn’t take long for her to start remembering why they fell in love in the first place… and to realize that Gavin never wanted her to change; he’d loved her for who she was all along.
3 Things I Loved
- Gavin. Okay, so, yes. Gavin is an idiot. But he’s a completely lovable idiot who we get to watch grow into a functioning human as the book progresses! His love for Thea is undeniable, though, and that’s the sweetest thing about the entire book.
- Thea. There is a lot to love about Thea as a protagonist in this one, but the thing I love the most is that she loves Gavin for who he is – stutter and all. I’ll get more into that in the next section, but Thea is a gem of a character.
- The Bromance Book Club. This concept hooked me from the start, and I was on board throughout the entire story. Grown men who read romances together in order to help each other improve/save their relationships? Oh yes. On board, forever and always.
Dislikes/Problematic Content
This book was relatively inclusive, although everyone was straight and the two main characters were white. So… sort of inclusive, I guess. But the best part of this book – and something I haven’t seen embraced so wholeheartedly before – was the fact that the hero of the story had a stutter as an adult. I truly loved that piece of it, because it was confronted, discussed, and dealt with on every page in a way that was tactful and seamlessly part of the story. I absolutely loved it.
My only real dislike in the book was Thea’s sister, whose name I don’t even remember. I’m kind of hoping she gets her own book so she can redeem herself, but she’s selfish and kind of a horrible sister to Thea. She WANTS Thea and Gavin to break up, which is fucking horrible. I wasn’t into it. It was like a devil’s advocate come to life. Ugh.
Rating
A reminder of the rating scale:
- Red = DNF, I hated everything
- Orange = Ugh, no thank you
- Yellow = I mean, I’ve read worse, but there were problems
- Green = This was good!
- Blue = Oh my gosh, I loved this book!
- Purple = This is the unicorn of books and I will be rereading it until the binding falls apart and EVERYONE should be reading it!
This was such a fun contemporary sports romance that wasn’t packaged as a sports romance. I’m super excited that it’s a series and we’re going to get to see more of these characters! I’m giving The Bromance Book Club a BLUE rating!
Thank you to the publisher and to Edelweiss for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! I’m a little late on the whole “advanced” part, but I still appreciate it!
Happy reading!
Snark & Squee 