Review: Not That Kind of Guy

“An office attraction becomes something more when they’re off the clock in this delightful romantic comedy by the USA Today bestselling author of Not the Girl You Marry.

State attorney Bridget Nolan is successful in all aspects of her life–except romance. After breaking up with her longtime boyfriend, she’s been slow to reenter the dating scene. To be honest, she has more important things to do like putting bad guys behind bars. But with her brother’s wedding right around the corner, she suddenly needs a date and fast. Lucky for Bridget, the legal intern is almost done with his program.

Matt Kido is dumbstruck by Bridget–total love at first sight–but there’s one problem. She’s totally off-limits while she’s his boss. But the moment he no longer reports to her, Matt asks her on a date. An impulsive decision takes them to Las Vegas where, as the saying goes, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Unless you put a ring on it.“

---

There’s no easy way to say it: this book needed a better edit.

This is one of those weird reviews where I liked SO MUCH about a book, but I just can’t rate it highly. I’m honestly bummed out right now because this really does have a lot going for it:

• An age-gap, power gap romance in which the woman is the older, more powerful one.
• A badass female lead who takes no prisoners in the courtroom.
• A swoon-worthy Japanese-American male lead who adores the heroine from the get-go.
• Both characters very aware of their privilege.
• Both characters mature and well-rounded.
• Some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments.
• Plot twists I did not see coming.
• So much feminism.

So, while the content was right up my alley, the book itself was not. And that all boils down to it needing a better edit.

• Starts off with a prolonged info-dump.
• Long beats in the dialogue.
• Tons of echoes from one paragraph to another.
• Waaaay too much exposition.
• Repetitive internal monologues.

I cannot stress enough how prevalent these issues are in the book. It made reading it feel like a chore, and the problems jumped out even more because it took me so long to get through this. I’d set it down for a week at a time, then pick it back up for another attempt and slog through it because the pacing is made incredibly slow by the over-done exposition and redundant, seemingly back-to-back-to-back internal monologues.

Bear in mind that we received a copy of this from the publisher – Berkley – through NetGalley, so some of my issues might have been fixed in the final copy, but after skimming some other reviews, I don’t think they all were.

All this said, I will for sure check out Andie J. Christopher’s other books, because the actual themes in this one are something I need more of in my life, and with a better edit, I can easily see myself five-starring their next release.

Thanks so much to Berkley for approving our ARC of this on NetGalley.