Review: The Bromance Book Club – Lyssa Kay Adams (Bromance Book Club #1)

Rating 2 Stars

What’s the book about?
The first rule of book club: You don’t talk about book club.

Nashville Legends second baseman Gavin Scott’s marriage is in major league trouble. He’s recently discovered a humiliating secret: his wife Thea has always faked the Big O. When he loses his cool at the revelation, it’s the final straw on their already strained relationship. Thea asks for a divorce, and Gavin realizes he’s let his pride and fear get the better of him.

Welcome to the Bromance Book Club.

Distraught and desperate, Gavin finds help from an unlikely source: a secret romance book club made up of Nashville’s top alpha men. With the help of their current read, a steamy Regency titled Courting the Countess, the guys coach Gavin on saving his marriage. But it’ll take a lot more than flowery words and grand gestures for this hapless Romeo to find his inner hero and win back the trust of his wife.

My Review
The Bromance Book Club took romancelandia by storm with its plotline of (supposed) feminism, an all-male romance book club, second chances and falling back in love with your spouse. There was so much excitement surrounding this book and I had countless people recommending it to me. Unfortunately, it fell flat for me and actually left me quite mad.

I almost dnf’d this story multiple times but ultimately continued because I was waiting for that a-ha moment that made me understand why so many people loved it. That moment never came. I was going to give this book 1 star but decided to boost it to 2 stars because despite it flaws, I loved the idea of a bunch of dudes sitting around reading romance novels and taking pointers on how to woo their beloved. I also loved the hero. Everything else, not so much.

As previously mentioned, the hero was great. He had his flaws but he loved his wife and family so much that he jumped through every single hoop the heroine threw at him. And she threw everything at him! So much so, I kept thinking: “If it wasn’t for the kids, why would you bother?” He had wonderful character growth and was the one aspect I genuinely enjoyed about this story. He made such an effort to keep his family together and prove his love to his wife, and I loved that.

The heroine on the other hand blamed the hero for absolutely everything. Yes, he had his flaws but she played a significant role in their relationship breakdown too. She shouldn’t have been faking certain things in the first place and could have just as easily communicated her thoughts and feelings to her husband at any point in their relationship. Communication is always key!

The heroine was also highly contradictory with her comments about how she doesn’t want any fighting or negative comments about her husband around their daughters because she and her sister had issues growing up with their own parents. Then she’d turn around and allow her sister to make all sorts of rude remarks and gestures towards her husband. This was clearly affecting one of her daughters who began showing serious attitude towards the father, and does the heroine say anything to that daughter? Nope. She lets the young daughter get away with being completely disrespectful.

The heroine also complained frequently about her life changing since having her daughters and not being able to do anything she wanted like paint or finish her degree. This statement baffled me. Firstly, it made me wonder what she expected would happen when she popped out a child. Of course, her life is going to change with a baby. Children need to be raised and aren’t just born fully able to look after themselves. They need schedules for eating and sleeping, they need activities to help them grow mentally and physically, and they need interactions with others to build social skills. The second part of this is that the heroine is in an incredibly fortunate position of being married to someone who makes millions per year. If she wanted to finish her degree or take some time out to get lost in painting, she could definitely afford to hire a full time or part time au pair/nanny to mind the children for a while. Unlike so many other women, the heroine was not without options if she had wanted to pursue something even for a few hours per week.

Other than the heroine, I also felt lots of frustration towards her sister who always just seemed to be lurking around, being rude to the hero and acting as the metaphorical devil on the heroine’s shoulders whispering complaints in her ear. She didn’t even know the whole story of what occurred between the hero and heroine and seriously needed to cut the hero a break.

I want to end this less than stellar review on a more positive note though and will say I enjoyed the members of the bromance book club. I especially loved Mack and was really looking forward to his story but then found out the heroine would be the sister from this book so I probably won’t read it. BUT I’ve just found out there is a third book releasing later this year and it sounds MUCH MORE my type of story with characters I’d enjoy so I’ll definitely add that one to my TBR. I feel really awful writing a negative review for a book but unfortunately this one just really wasn’t for me and that’s okay.