ARC Review: Best Men by Sidney Karger

Best Men by Sidney Karger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars rounded up

A chaotic stream of consciousness liveblogging style book loosely disguised as a romance wherein the point of view character is a dude who is almost 40 but constantly drinks, never sleeps, has way too many inside jokes, eats diner food at all hours, and is generally Bad at Life. The book gave me a lot of sympathy heartburn and made me want to sit on my couch and talk to no one.

The title is apt as the two main characters are both Best Men in the same wedding. Max, the POV character, is bad at wedding planning but is a huge baby about being left out, and Chasten is good at wedding planning and is a Grown Up and shenanigans ensue! Like, a LOT of shenanigans. Too many shenanigans. I needed this whole thing to be turned down like 10 or so notches. The word "gay-xpectations" was used. Approximately four hundred songs were mentioned by name, artist, and song lyric. Every office plant Max obtained from people he fired at his job was listed in exhaustive detail. And sooo many inside jokes. I appreciate committing to the bit as much as the next person pretending they're doing improv comedy but goodness.

Because of all that other...stuff, the romance really took a backseat. I would have preferred to see some of that space given to the relationship development between Max and Chasten. I mean, a thorough description of the things they told each other about their respective childhoods is great and all but I'd rather read the list of office plants again than that boring crap. The romance needed to be brought UP 10 notches instead of crammed in at the end between other stuff i didn't care about.

Overall, the book needs less nonsense, more romance, and to get rid of every inside joke and song reference and then it might just be a pretty good story.

I received an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

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