Emma Hart

From New York Times bestselling author, Emma Hart, comes a brand new standalone novel. BEING BROOKE is a laugh-out-loud, witty, sexy, and sometimes highly inappropriate romantic comedy about being in love with your best friend. And how much that freaking sucks. My name is Brooke Barker... And I'm a freaking disaster. No, seriously. I'm a college drop-out working a dead-end job, my best friend Carly's dog gets more action than I do, and I have more bad dates in my diary than there are movie remakes. Not to mention I'm completely and utterly in love with Cain Elliott. The problem? He's in a relationship. With a girl who's so plastic she makes Barbie cry herself to sleep with jealousy. The second problem? He's my best friend. My shut-up-and-put-on-Harry-Potter, yes-this-is-your-shirt, help-I-have-no-power, crap-I'm-out-of-tampons, kinda best friend. And that's all he can be, right? Right.

Being Brooke

azliana aziz

this started out really promising with the friends turn lovers' arc which is my ultimate fav thing to read BUT shit quickly went off the rail.

i hate the heroine. 
there's nothing endearing/relatable/compelling in having your 24 year old heroine to be a self proclaimed hot mess and having her proudly announces it to every single person and repeating it in every single chapter. how low can you let your character be. what's worst was that there was no character development until the end unless you count her sudden and rushed interest in baking. also how can you believe a person that can't boil pasta to be a master in baking?
i want to like her but her constant self doubt and her unnecessary 'bitchiness' were insufferable.
also there's not so much as a plot here just heroine and hero sort of playing bff while being blind to each other's feelings and keep on going back and forth.


such waste of my holiday time. sobs

Colleen

1.5 Stars

This review contains spoilers.

Nope. Definitely not. There is one giant reason that I did not like this book, and that is the heroine. I don't have particularly high expectations of this sort of book, but I at least want them to be fun. But Being Brooke had one of the worst female leads that I have ever read. Brooke was raunchy, wretched, rude, vulgar, apathetic, and possibly lacking in personal hygiene. She was the kind of girl who constantly badmouthed herself to try to fish complements from other people. She talked persistently about how she was overweight and not pretty but then also talked about how great her metabolism was and how awesome her breasts were. She complained about guys always checking her out but also shamelessly flaunted it and flirted with anything male. She was constantly nasty to other people including her friends and family. Frankly, she was just straight up bitchy. And no I do not use that term lightly. To make matters worse, Brooke was the hypocritical type that was completely condemning of other girls who displayed half the nastiness she did. And most of the other characters were as vulgar as she was.

On top of that, the writing was not great. Again, I do not expect any great literary feats, but even without all the horrible main character and random vulgarity it was not consistent or compelling. I am rarely fond of first person anyway, but it is particularly disappointing when the narrator is such an unpleasant person!

The hero was ok, but most of the cute or romantic moments were eclipsed by how obnoxious Brooke was. Also, I would recommend a life rule of never dating anyone who has at any point called you a bitch even if it was supposedly jokingly. Way to kill the romance, dude.

The romance angle was predictable and drawn out. It was mostly just prolonged angsty cowardice about taking any risks in relationships. And of course there was a love triangle thrown in.

There was also a side plot where Brooke suddenly turned into a master baker despite literally not being able to boil water. This hidden skill was not mentioned until over half way through. After saying how incompetent she was at literally everything, she somehow instantly became a Martha Stuart prodigy. It felt more like a last ditch attempt to make Brooke not seem like a total catastrophe, and it was not remotely believable. 

This would be classified as new adult I guess. It was not lighthearted enough to be chick lit. But there really was not any steamy stuff, so it definitely did not venture into erotica. So yeah, I would probably classify it as New Adult. Very uninspiring New Adult. At least it was short. But it was still very disappointing.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 3 Stars
Writing Style: 1 Star
Characters: 1 Star
Plot Structure and Development: 1 Star
Level of Captivation: 2 Stars
Originality: 1 Star

Megan Williams

5 "Being Brooke is Actually Pretty Cool" Stars

I absolutely adore funny books... like you give me a funny book with good content and I love it! And Being Brooke is no different. Basically this chick named Brooke (you may or may not have gotten her name for the title...) has a life that is falling apart. Not only is she working a dead-end job and has more bad dates than the average chica, she's also in love with her best friend... who of course has a girlfriend. So obviously her life was not so bueno...

One thing that I loved about this book is that the awkwardness was balanced with the awesomeness of Brooke. Her life might not have been all together, but dang did she handle herself in those situations that were just a tad too awkward to handle! 

I absolutely loved the love story in this novel. There was a twist on the usual friends -> romance story because this is also a story about a woman coming into her own and becoming more confident in herself. Of course there were challenges to this... her mother was a little uptight and she was in love with her best friend. But dang did this girl stay strong and toughen up! This is the best thing about novels like this, because even though the romance is great (and I mean really, really great) but the characters coming into their own and growing up through the novel is just the best thing and leaves me feeling happy and hopeful after finishing the book.

Brooke is a great main character because she isn't perfect and guys aren't tripping over themselves to get with her, therefore she is a real presentation of what women usually are like. Not to say she isn't awesome or pretty or anything like that... but instead she was created to be a real person who didn't get every guy to fall in love with her and that was OKAY!

So yah... to really did "dig" this book because it was just the perfect story to read when I was looking for a romantic comedy. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking to laugh or maybe even blush in embarrassment at some of the situations that go down...

Girl, I totally understand. 


I'm not into reading romantic comedy's, or even watching them except for on the occasion. *Ducks from judgement* I'm not sure why I wanted to read this, but I guess the mood struck for something funny. I've only read a book or two by Emma Hart, so I knew a bit about her writing style and figured I would like this one, too. 


Brooke is in love. Not with the boy next door, or the hot CEO that happens to be her boss. No, she's in love with her best friend. He doesn't know, of course, why would he? If he did, it would ruin everything Brooke holds dear to her: their friendship. So she tries to keep it platonic, but as things start to heat up and hiding her love becomes more of a challenge than she'd like, she has a choice to make. 


I love Brooke. She's funny, down to earth, and totally knows whats up. She watches Harry Potter, drinks wine all day, and thinks scratching her back is too much of a workout. So, really, she's me but in book form. She's just so relate able and cool, and since she's like me, it was like reading about myself. Woah. She tries so hard to remain cool and passive around Cain (her bff slash crush. Keep up!), and often fails at times. I was constantly wondering how Cain couldn't figure it out, the poor girl had it written all over her body!


“Tonight has been the craziest, most insane night of perhaps my entire life—except the one I was born. I imagine that’s insane, coming out of a vagina and all that.” 


Cain doesn't realize his best friend likes him. He's too busy trying to ignore those feelings that almost, kinda swarm inside him. Besides, he's got a girlfriend already, he shouldn't be thinking about Brooke like that. But boy, does he! His girlfriend, I couldn't stand her, therefore, I don't have a name for her. Let's go with plastic Barbie. Plastic Barbie is exactly how her name sounds. She's fake, whiny, and doesn't like Cain hanging out with Brooke. (Plus, her boobs are obviously fake).

 


It took a while for Cain to get into gear, but when he finally did, everything went the way I expected. They had their share of problems and arguments, but found a way to get over them and their awkwardness. Man, their awkwardness was awkward.


“I'm twenty-four, it's a Friday night, and I'm waiting in for a take-out gyros and fries in my onesie. My life is just so exciting I can barely stand it. ” 


By the way, the above quote doesn't match me perfectly. I'm 20, thank you.



I think this was a fun book. The plot was interesting even though the friendship to lovers thing happens so much. It can become a cliche type story, so I'm glad Emma Hart could make it different and entertaining. Her writing is great, and really kept me immersed in the story. 


I don't really dislike anything about this book, and while it was fresh, I felt like it missed something. But the characters really got my love and for that reason, its has three stars.

Being Brooke

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