SOPHIE LI

I enjoyed Get a Life, Chloe Brown, so I was looking forward to this sequel. Overall, I liked it. Here’s my review:

Danika Brown knows what she wants: professional success, academic renown, and an occasional roll in the hay to relieve all that career-driven tension. But romance? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. Romantic partners, whatever their gender, are a distraction at best and a drain at worst. So Dani asks the universe for the perfect friend-with-benefits—someone who knows the score and knows their way around the bedroom. 

When brooding security guard Zafir Ansari rescues Dani from a workplace fire drill gone wrong, it’s an obvious sign: PhD student Dani and ex-rugby player Zaf are destined to sleep together. But before she can explain that fact, a video of the heroic rescue goes viral. Now half the internet is shipping #DrRugbae—and Zaf is begging Dani to play along. Turns out, his sports charity for kids could really use the publicity. Lying to help children? Who on earth would refuse? 

Dani’s plan is simple: fake a relationship in public, seduce Zaf behind the scenes. The trouble is, grumpy Zaf’s secretly a hopeless romantic—and he’s determined to corrupt Dani’s stone-cold realism. Before long, he’s tackling her fears into the dirt. But the former sports star has issues of his own, and the walls around his heart are as thick as his… um, thighs. 

Suddenly, the easy lay Dani dreamed of is more complex than her thesis. Has her wish backfired? Is her focus being tested? Or is the universe just waiting for her to take a hint?

I enjoyed reading about Dani and Zafir’s relationship as it evolved from coworkers and friends to something more. Dani and Zafir were polar opposites when it came to relationships. While Dani avoided relationships like the plague, Zafir was a hopeless romantic. Add in some serious chemistry and fake relationships, and we have a sizzling romance going on!

I liked that in this book, as well as the other romances I’ve read recently, we see strong, career-focused independent women as the female MC! Here, Dani was a PhD student who taught courses at a university, and she was confident and self-assured.

I also loved reading about Dani and Zafir’s families who had unique dynamics—from Zafir’s favourite niece “Fluff” and his sister-in-law, to Dani’s beloved sisters Chloe and Eve.

There were a lot of tropes at play here (fake romance, opposites attract, friends to lovers…), so the story got predictable fast. I could pretty much guess what would happen from the first few chapters onwards.

Also, is it typical for the male MC to have a dark and secret past in the romance genre? Because it’s all I’ve seen in every romance book I’ve read hahaha. 

The final conflict was anti-climactic… Nothing much happened, though what did happen felt dramatic and overblown.

3/5 fishies!

Take a Hint, Dani Brown followed many of the established romance tropes, but it was still a fun and light read!

Photo by Felipe Correia on Unsplash