Name: Hanan Alsmadi's review of One of the Guys by Lisa Aldin
Item: One of the Guys
Rating: 5
Author: Hanan Alsmadi

Lisa Aldin

Tomboy to the core, Toni Valentine understands guys. She'll take horror movies, monster hunts and burping contests over manicures. So Toni is horrified when she's sent to the Winston Academy for Girls, where she has to wear a skirt and learn to be a "lady" while the guys move on without her. Then Toni meets Emma Elizabeth, a girl at school with boy troubles, and she volunteers one of her friends as a pretend date. Word spreads of Toni's connections with boys, and she discovers that her new wealthy female classmates will pay big money for fake dates. Looking for a way to connect her old best friends with her new life at school, Toni and Emma start up Toni Valentine's Rent-A-Gent Service. But the business meets a scandal when Toni falls for one of her friends--the same guy who happens to be the most sought-after date. With everything she's built on the line, Toni has to decide if she wants to save the business and her old life, or let go of being one of the guys for a chance at love.

One of the Guys

Hanan Alsmadi

b.andherbooks

Cute friends turned lovers story complete with a search for a Loch Ness monster type creature. The 'rent a gent' business idea wasn't really inspired or interesting but the scenes with both Micah and Toni sparkled.
Sweet, fizzy, and quick fare.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Lisa ✩ @lifeinlit

One of the Guys caught my attention at first with its adorable cover. Growing up with my two brothers I was definitely a tomboy. Once I was able to dress myself and pick my own interests, dresses and princesses were out the window, and in walked sneakers and sports. I loved spending our evenings and summers playing outside with my brothers, riding our bikes, playing basketball obsessively, and adding some football in for variety. My point to this long story? I was and always will be a tomboy. Even to this day I prefer sweats and sneakers over dresses and heels any day. I also find guy friends much easier to keep and get along with. Maybe that’s because I work in a office with 15 women every day. Yeah… definitely difficult at times. LOL So anyway, this story definitely spiked my inner boyishness and had me grinning from ear to ear.

Toni is a tomboy, plain and simple. She doesn’t have any gal pals, strictly guy friends, that all enjoy the same things as her. She much prefers monster hunting with the guys to manicures and sleepovers with the girls. But after a silly prank she finds herself attending an all-girls school where she’s forced to wear a uniform with a skirt and even attend meetings to discuss her feelings. Basically her worst nightmare! And to make all of this worse, she feels her group of guy friends becoming distant since she’s not around as much anymore, having to drive quite a distance to school and back every day.

This group of characters was so much fun!! I loved how the guys and Toni all went by nicknames. Each guy was SO different and so unique. It was fun to see them all together with their different personalities. I think Cowboy was my favorite. So very shy and quiet, awkward and so quick to blush. Loch was adorable too, and super sweet. These are definitely guys I would be friends with myself if I had the chance.

Also this story has a great family component to it. Toni’s mother remarried, and Toni is still struggling to get to know her stepfather, Brian, a bit better. She feels like he’s so tough on her, setting her punishments harsher than her mother would, and setting limits that her mother never enforced, such as not allowing Loch to sleep over anymore, which they’ve been doing since they were very young. He’s strict, and Toni doesn’t like it one bit.

“We know it’s last minute. But we both think you’re responsible enough to take care of the house while we’re gone.”
Maybe SHE thinks that, but Brian looks pale at the thought of leaving a (gasp!) teenage girl alone in a house. He believes a teenage girl to be the equivalent to an in-heat hyena. Like I’ll stain the couch with my hormones or something.

I don’t like to go into too much detail in my reviews in general, since I feel all too often the synopsis already gives too much away. If you haven’t read this synopsis yet, just don’t. Just go into this book knowing only what I said in the paragraph above, and based on the adorable cover. I’d like to think that you won’t be disappointed, specially if you’re a tomboy and can relate like I did. It brought back so many fun memories from my teenage years, ones I tend to forget now that I’m adult. I really enjoyed this story from beginning to end.

Another adorable contemp, another win for 2015! Also a great debut from an author I’m sure will write many more stories that I will enjoy. Call it a feeling. ;) I also have a feeling this is going to be THE YEAR for contemporaries. So far, so good. Let’s do this, 2015!

(Thanks to Spencer Hill Contemporary for the review copy!)


  Find this review and others like it at Lost in Literature!

 Bruna Acioly Leão

This was a cute and entertaining story and I had a lot of reading it. Nothing special or memorable, but worth the read!

Hanan Alsmadi &
One of the Guys by Lisa Aldin

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Hanan Alsmadi &One of the Guys by Lisa Aldin

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Hanan Alsmadi &
One of the Guys by Lisa Aldin