Review: The Bromance Bookclub (bromance Book Club #1) by lyssa Kay Adams

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. ~ Goodreads

Source: e-arc provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Review:

I adored this book SO much! It had all the humor, friendships, romance and showed the work to the couple’s HEA.

We start from Gavin’s POV, where he’s shaken to his core to find out his wife has been faking the Big O for their entire marriage. he does not handle it well and his wife, Thea ask for a divorce.

As Nashville Legends second baseman, he’s put his all into the game but thought he had a solid marriage. He’s stunned by Thea’s revelation but is sure he can get her back but of course goes abut it all wrong and pushes her further away.

His teammates see him fumbling along and bring him into their secret club where they read romance novels to learn what the women in their lives want, need and use them to help communicate better.

Oh man, did I love Gavin’s friends and their willingness to help him but also to see things from Thea’s pov. The romance book club could have been used as a gimmick – and it does make for a lot of laughs – but it never stoops to making fun of the genre or it’s readers. This aspect was so brilliantly done that I hope it somehow sweeps the nation and becomes a thing in marriage counseling/communication. Not to mention how well it tackles misogyny and toxic masculinity without missing a beat or getting preachy.

The club chooses a Regency title called, Courting the Countess, for Gavin and excerpts from this story alternated between Gavin and Thea’s chapters – giving a blueprint for how things went wrong and how they could move forward.

Gavin is so clearly a good guy and husband who still adores his wife. If I had a nitpick it would be with this. He’s so awesome (and introduced to the reader first) that Thea comes off as too harsh. But once you get to know her better, she’s someone I think we can all relate to. They married quickly after her pregnancy and she was swept up into Gavin’s lifestyle and being a mom that she lost most of what made her Thea.

She grudgingly let’s Gavin move back in but only to prove that it’s over and they agree to date rather than jump all in. It was really sweet seeing them fall back in love and really listen to each other – not just play the blame game. They both needed to make changes and do the work.

It’s interesting how both Thea and Gavin’s parents marriages had an impact on them in totally different ways. Gavin’s parents marriage seemed perfect to him so he felt like a failure by having any problems while Thea came from a broken home and didn’t trust people to stick around when it got tough. Thea’s sister was aggressively against Thea and Gavin's reconciliation and really pissed me off at times. I thought she overstepped but a) I got it. She has baggage too and was just being overprotective and b) Thea didn’t stand for it. She made her own choices. I ended up having compassion for her sister and hope she gets a book! There was a hint of who her love interest would be and boy will that be a doozy! lol But girrrrrrlllll BACK OFF! lol

This is one of the few romance novels I’ve read that showed a truly messy marriage with bad sex *gasp* so that couldn’t be used as a crutch or easy way out to solve things.

This is being marketed as a rom-com and there are LOTS of laughs! but this one hit me in the feels a lot and felt much more emotional than I was expecting.

The Bromance Book Club was funny, with relatable problems and solutions using a a very clever take on the romance genre and tropes.

So maybe – rom-com with a gut punch?