23 February 2017

Book Review: The Good Girlfriend's Guide to Getting Even by Anna Bell

"When Lexi's sport-mad boyfriend Will skips her friend's wedding to watch football - after pretending to have food poisoning - it might just be the final whistle for their relationship.

But fed up of just getting mad, Lexi decides to even the score. And, when a couple of lost tickets and an 'accidentally' broken television lead to them spending extra time together, she's delighted to realise that revenge might be the best thing that's happened to their relationship.

And if her clever acts of sabotage prove to be a popular subject for her blog, what harm can that do? It's not as if he'll ever find out . . ."

Rating: 4/5

I am a big fan of author Anna Bell, and again was thrilled to be asked to review her brand new book The Good Girlfriend's Guide to Getting Even. I was even more excited to see that Anna had mentioned me in the acknowledgements at the end - it's always lovely to see an author appreciate what us bloggers do! So, I got stuck into this, expecting as usual another brilliantly funny read! The blurb sounded really funny, like the sort of escapist read I could do with, and it didn't let me down!

Lexi was a really funny character, and made me laugh from the very beginning. I know some of the things she did were perhaps a little childish, and yes, she should have confronted her boyfriend Will but that wouldn't have made for a very good or funny book would it?! The fact Lexi did things I would never have even dreamt of meant it made me laugh, and I was sure at every turn she was going to get found out, and make things even worse for herself! I understood she was cross that her boyfriend seemingly lied to her about being poorly to miss a wedding for a football match, and the way she found herself in this revenge spiral was quite amusing, even though her friends weren't exactly supportive of her actions!

Will seemed to be the character that we, as readers, were meant to hate. He was completely sports mad, to the detriment of their relationships at times, and I did feel sorry for Lexi in this regard. He couldn't seem to see that his obsession was upsetting her either, so I think the pair would have benefitted from actually being honest with each other once in a while! However, I did feel sorry for him a little bit when Lexi started to exact her revenge, because he genuinely seemed clueless about how all these unfortunate things kept happening to him, and never seemed to suspect Lexi at all!

Anna Bell's writing in this book is really on point, and she keeps the pace up all the way through the story, allowing the characters to develop well, and Lexi's plan to go as she hopes, while all the time you are aware that at some point she's going to find out, and the longer it goes on, you know the eventual reveal is going to be even worse for her! As the book hurtles towards the end, I almost didn't want to read it because I just knew it was going to get pretty awful before it could attempt to get better! There are some scenes set in Barbados, and Anna writes these wonderfully, it was great to picture the country, the beaches, and the luxury hotel Will and Lexi find themselves in.

While I think some people might find this book a bit silly, and get annoyed with Lexi's revenge plot, I actually found the whole thing really enjoyable, and definitely laughed out loud quite a lot as I was reading! I stayed up late a few nights reading this, because I didn't want to put it down - I was desperate to find out what Lexi was going to come up with next, and if and when poor Will would find out what she had been up to! A laugh-out-loud, funny, escapist read that will surely leave you with a smile on your face... and perhaps a bit of a warning to sports mad men - don't ignore your girlfriend for your sports, and if you do so, it's at your own peril! A great read!

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