A nice surprise

Beauty and the Mustache: A Philisophical Romance (Knitting in the City Book 4) - Penny Reid

First of all...

What's with this title? o_O

Why "Mustache"? Why not : Beauty and The Bearded Guy...or Beauty with a Lot Of Bearded Guys In Her Life...or jut plain and basic: Talks of Nietzsche's Moustache!

(there is quite a lot of references to Nietzsche in this novel basically due to the fact that the male leading character, Drew, is somewhat of a emo poet.)

 

Back to the title..I honestly did not compute it, mainly because there was never a moment in this novel in which Ashley lets her "mustache" (moustache) grow, lol

 

So...no bearded, I mean...moustached ladies for anyone in this book.

Readers, you're warned!;)

 

Now that I've made that perfectly clear, let me get back to what matters...

 

I liked this book. I liked most of its story, and most of its outspoken with a lot of facial hairs characters.

 

This was in fact the first book I've read by this author, but hopefully it won't be my last, because having just finished this fourth book in the series, I am now interested in reading the previous three volumes!

(Sometimes I ignore logic and do things like this...)

 

So, having read the book synopsis, and having seen the book cover, I was expecting something more on the light side, you know, a little comedy _hopefully with not that much of insanity thrown in _ than actually having to deal with a lot of drama.

Unfortunately _or maybe not _ this book has a hidden depth and a whole lot of drama.

 

It does in fact have a character that is on the final stages of a cancer, and for a couple of weeks, we have the lady's family trying to come to terms with what is happening.

To lighten things up a bit, there's the fact that there's seven siblings living on the same house, six of them guys who apparently do a lot of.....cough...lets say there's schedules involving the use of bathrooms...

GUYS :/

Then there's Ashley's friends who like to make bawdy comparisons with read meat ...

YOU GIRLS!

 

Some wise truths are revealed:

 

Yes, I was a creeper, but I didn’t care. Drew brought these compulsions out in me, so he could just suffer through my leering and take it like a man.
Or a girl. Because, if there’s one thing a girl grows up learning how to do, it’s suffering through leering.

 

YES!

 

The romance is not rushed, much on the contrary. Drew and Ashley maintain in fact during a great part of the story a less than amicable relationship.

 

 Later on, it is explained why the guy is the way he is, but that doesn't erase the fact that at the beginning of the story, Drew definitely comes out as an ass.

The cow Nietzsche comment? :/

Oh, Drew...   you ass!

 

Then there was the way in which the relationship between the siblings was dealt, that felt a little too neat, for me. 

They behaved as absolute nightmares to the girl while growing up, but of course, eight years later, they're angels. All of them.

 

Also, with so many bearded guys walking around, most of the times I had no idea who was whom.

 

When it comes to Ashley's friends I have to say that I liked the way they were there for her, even when it was Sandra doing the talking o_O, wow that's one scary psychotherapist!

I can't wait to read her book!

 

What I didn't like:

I didn't like Drew's macho crap. The initial one, and then later on , when the guy decides to just keep quiet and decide things for Ashley.

I didn't like that once again, it was the woman who had to the a  one eighty in her life, because there was no way Drew was ever changing his life and his routine..

And I honestly didn't like the last pages told from Drew's perspective, mainly because they sounded too obsessive in a new adult style, you know?

But as a whole, this was a pretty decent contemporary romance and yes, I am looking forward in reading more books from this series.