“It’s okay, I don’t think you tried to trap me into something by getting your friend pregnant.”
In a word: Read the thing. I was expecting a bit more angst when I started this, but it really is mostly just pure fluff. Sunshine and rainbows everywhere, truly. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it’s apparently not really my thing. I did like this book, but a lot of it was a bit too sweet for my liking. It’s a good feel-good story, if you’re looking for a fluff read. The first half of the story is mostly our two leads, Kent and Dex, meeting and getting to know each other and having a lot of sex. The first half of the book is mostly sex, which I found frustrating because it felt like it was just padding while waiting for the plot proper to start. Don’t get me wrong, Dex and Kent together are sweet and funny, and it’s fun to read, but it did all feel like filler. Then when Dex found out about the babies, when there would’ve been a chance for some angst and conflict, the tone didn’t change. If no-angst fluff is your thing, you’re gonna love this book. I, personally, prefer my reading with a bit less fluff but I still did enjoy reading this. Kent and Dex are a good match, and they really do love each other. Kent’s family is also pretty great, and Dex’s interactions with them are cute. The babies are also cute. Pretty much everything about this is cute, even the sex scenes sometimes. Summed up in one word: cute.
The Summary: (from Goodreads) Free-spirited computer programmer Kent McMann loves life, candy, his family, and his job designing apps. With his go-getter attitude, he succeeds at anything he tackles. So having a child with a surrogate mother is the perfect start to the family he’s always wanted, even though he still hasn’t found his longed-for Mr. Right.
Then, into Kent’s life comes triathlete Dex Lochland, who also happens to be a successful app designer, and the two of them hit it off. They soon begin a relationship full of fun, sex, laughter, and love. But when Kent learns his attempt at fatherhood with the surrogate has succeeded, Dex is shocked. Unknown to Kent until that moment, Dex has never wanted children.
Kent’s decision before he met Dex might cost him the man of his dreams.
[available for purchase at Dreamspinner Press, Amazon.ca, Chapters, and Barnes & Noble]
THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS
WHAT I LIKED:
- Kent and Dex: Kent McMann and Dex Lochland are both app designers with the same company. They don’t know each other well at the beginning of the story, but they know of each other. They meet at an app launch party and immediately click (which comes as a bit of a surprise to Dex because he was essentially forced to the party, by a friend(?) named Julie or Julia who we never hear from again after that, and doesn’t generally like socializing). Kent is cheerful, happy, and goofy, and Dex is instantly smitten with him. Dex is more on the serious side, but he can let himself go a bit around Kent and join in on the joking and fun. They spend quite a bit of time together after they meet and get pretty close pretty quick. It becomes clear early on that they’re fairly perfect for each other. Reading about them together is great, because this story is mostly pure fluff all they have are good times. They bounce off each other well and they’re both pretty funny together and that leads to some humourous dialogue. The one thing that could possibly drive them apart is that Dex doesn’t want to have children and Kent does (and is already in the process of having them). That doesn’t become nearly as angsty as it could because, of course, Dex comes to the realization that he’s actually pretty cool with kids (he’s never really come out and said that he never wants children, just that he’s not particularly fond of them and that he’s never really had to think about it). This fact causes the two of them to decide to be just friends with benefits, but they can’t fight their feelings for each other and just can’t bring themselves to keep away. They’re both completely gone on each other and nothing can break that bond.
- Laughs: I knew this book was going to be mostly fluff, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was also pretty funny in parts. Most of the humour is in the dialogue, as Kent and Dex have some pretty silly banter at times. Also the narration has some funny thoughts as well (it’s not first-person, but there are clear voices in the narrative). Sometimes the dialogue and situations were a bit too cutesy or fluffy for me, but the funny scenes always got a smile out of me.
- Babies: The babies themselves aren’t born until near the end of the story, so we don’t see much of them at all. But whatever, they’re cute. Dex and Kent are also cute in how besotted they are with their new children, which is always a fun thing to read.
- The Family McMann: Kent has two parents, a sister, a brother-in-law, and two nieces. They’re all pretty great. Most of the book is just Kent and Dex being together and having fun and falling in love. But sometimes they’ll go hang out with Kent’s family. We don’t get a lot of insight into who Kent’s relatives are as people, but it’s obvious that they’re all very supportive and loving and good people. They adore Kent, and they’re all quick to bring Dex into the fold even while he and Kent are insisting that they aren’t together for the long-haul. Scenes with them were pretty fun and changed things up a bit so that it wasn’t just Kent and Dex together having sex all the time (there were a lot of sex scenes in this book, okay?).
MEH:
- Sex: I found that there was a lot of sex going on in this book, especially in the first half. There was nothing particularly wrong with the sex scenes; they were well written, and Kent and Dex seemed to be having a good time. Personally I felt like they were getting a bit in the way of the plot. I usually feel like sex scenes tend to drag the story out a bit if there should be something else happening. This is just a personal nit-pick of mine, but it did make reading the first half of the story a bit slow, although Kent and Dex’s interactions were sweet and funny enough to keep me interested.
- Real Lack of Conflict: One thing I wasn’t really crazy about was the distinct lack of major conflict. It’s not that I wanted Kent and Dex to fight or separate or anything, but I was hoping for a bit more… drama, maybe? The summary makes it seem like Dex not wanting children will drive a major wedge between him and Kent that they’ll have to work past, but that never happened. They had a minor argument when Dex first found out about the babies, but other than that it’s fairly smooth sailing. The two of them do decide that they’re going to be friends with benefits instead of actual partners, but they mostly seem to ignore that and continue on as they were. Kent even invites Dex for Christmas with his family and they all get along swimmingly. There is basically no room for relationship drama in this book. Dex even decides that he does want children with Kent after seemingly very little fanfare. Nothing wrong with going the no-drama route, but I guess I just prefer my stories with a little more of the sads (although I’m not a huge fan of third-act breakups, go figure).
OF COURSE:
- 3 Times the Fun: As soon as this happened, my first thought was that I should’ve seen it coming. It’s not like multiples resulting from surrogacy is unheard of (I’m pretty sure it’s almost a trope of some sort), but I really only was expecting one baby to result. Instead there’s triplets. Because of course there is. Kent and Elizabeth (a friend of Kent’s who volunteered to be a surrogate for him) go in for an ultrasound and the doctor surprises them by finding not one, not two, but three And then Kent faints, because that’s the kind of story this is. It was a cute scene though, fitting in with the running theme of the book. But yeah, three babies instead of one, surprised but not surprised.
- Proposal: Kent and Dex eventually decide, after they’ve bought a house and agreed to raise the babies together, to get married. They’ve known each other a little less than a year, but they’re already moved in, starting a family, and getting married. Whatever, though, it completely fits in with the direction of the story. This story is pure fluff, so of course everything is going to work out well for them. It’s cheesy and light and fun though. But everyone reading it probably all saw it coming a mile away, which is probably part of the fun.
UM…:
- Inaccuracy: This is mostly just me being nit-picky, or I just misread something somewhere (because this part is mostly unclear and happens a bit quick). So, Elizabeth is pregnant with triplets, which is right away a high-risk pregnancy. Then at some point the babies are in distress and Elizabeth is put in the hospital on bed rest (I think). The triplets end up being delivered a few weeks early (six weeks at most) and they might’ve been in distress during the delivery, so I’m confused as to why they weren’t immediately shuttled to the NICU. That’s usually what happens in these cases, because six-week-preemies aren’t usually strong enough (I don’t think) right off the bat. But not only were the babies not immediately put in incubators (there was a bit of a meet-and-greet in the delivery room after the babies were born), but it sounded like they were able to go home the same day they were born. Which, what? I call shenanigans on that. It’s not enough to derail the story or anything, and most people probably wouldn’t care about it, but it rubbed me the wrong way a bit. But this story wasn’t meant to have any angst in it, so I’ll let it slide.
[Of Love was published June 24, 2015, by Dreamspinner Press; it is only available as an ebook]
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