Review: The Grumpy Player Next Door

The Grumpy Player Next Door by Pippa Grant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

THIS BOOK! I was the epitome of the rolling on the floor laughing emoji while reading this book! That shouldn't be a surprise, but it surprised the hell out of me because I wasn't sure that Pippa Grant could top my previous favourites, and yet...

It was great going back to Shipwreck and seeing the insanity that is the Rock family - especially when Tillie Jean and Cooper's teasing/pranking is on full display. I love pirates, so really any mention of pirates and I'm sold. Shipwreck is top in my books!

This was Tillie Jean and Max's story - I could wax poetic about them all day and how I laughed so hard my coffee shot out my nose during one particular roof scene involving my other favourite animal character - Long Beak Silver is the BEST, I said what I said! I love how even though there were some serious issues dealt with for Max predominantly, the laughter never felt forced or ill timed. And I did laugh A LOT throughout this book. Like a LOT. I think I need a new keyboard based on how many times I spit out some kind of liquid because I was laughing too hard even though I KNOW not to drink and read Pippa Grant books. That's a dangerous combination folks, don't do it! Your electronics will thank you!

The best way for you to experience how it's totally possible to stick two people who have some serious issues (some of them worse than others) together and wonder if they'll come out the other side with a happily ever after is to READ THIS BOOK!

Normally I would give you some of my favourite lines and some incredible gif action here - but I have to do this one on my phone and that makes that sooooo much harder for me to do accurately (the gifs) and I can't quote nearly an entire book. Seriously, you should see my highlights - there are so many there is barely any clear text in the book. I'm trying to narrow it down - so when I have the ability to get on my computer and make that happen I will circle back and add a handful.

One-click this baby today! You're going to love it, I swear.

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Review: I Pucking Love You

I Pucking Love You by Pippa Grant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Warning the following review may make you incredibly hungry for fish & chips. Like irrationally so... Or maybe it's just this book that did that because I've been craving fish & chips since the moment I read it.



Holy Hannah PEOPLE! I've been waiting for this book for like a WHILE.



Not as long as I've been waiting for a book for Duncan Lavoie, #TeamLavoieNeedsLove , but I digress...



Here it is folks we FINALLY have the Muffy and Jaeger book we've been waiting for - I Pucking Love You is the latest installment in Pippa Grant's Thrusters books (HELLLLLLOOOOOOO HOCKEY ROMANCE!) and I feel like I've been waiting forever for it!



What happens when you have a hook up in the walk-in fridge of the bunny bar with someone you have a friendly/flirty with for at least a year, but you both think you've ghosted each other after it happens?



Is it awkward?



For Tyler Jaeger, the answer is yes. Actually, it's life changing. Dick breaking if you will...

I want to kick something.

Punch something.

Maybe myself. In the junk.

That’ll make it work again, right?

Fuck.

Just fuck.

But no matter how much I have learned to love Tyler (You and your brother man, both of you trying so damn hard to push Ares out of my heart. You both just have to share I have enough heart for all of you!), it's Muffy that steals the show here.

Now wait, I know I KNOW I could tell you all about how I love Muffy because she's just so relatable: she's not a size two, she hasn't got her life together, she feels like a failure, and she has at least one person in her life that is OVER THE TOP embarrassing and makes her feel like utter trash. But I'd rather you read it. You've seen Muffy and her matchmaking service for the average unconventionally pretty gal, Muff Matchers, before. You know she's a klutz and an accident waiting to happen, and that she has one of the biggest hearts for anyone else but what you might not know is that she has such a hard time applying that kindness to herself. I think that was the beauty of this story, seeing Muffy realize just how much she is loved when she can't even see it.



As always, no Pippaverse book would be complete without cameo performances by a cat with waaaaaaayyyyyy more than nine lives, some fish, a rocket thruster powered bratwurst mascot with a mustard issue, two very large Berger brothers, a tiny pixie haired hacktivist and her impressively scary SEAL other half, a party girl billionaire, random acts of kindness, a funeral, numerous hockey players (because it is a hockey romance), a cow dog, the bunnies and their bar, and some outrageous text message conversations. I loved every cameo in this book and it was incredible to catch up with some of the characters I've loved for so long. Fun fact, after I finished this book (because I always read a book twice before you get one of these lovely reviews) I immediately had to run and revisit Beauty and the Beefcake and Charming as Puck JUST BECAUSE. If you haven't read any of these books, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???? GO!



Read them right now!



You can't possibly want to deny yourself the laughter that comes with reading a Pippa Grant book. Seriously. Don't believe me? How about I leave you with some of my...



Favourite Lines -

“Why don’t mathematicians ever throw keggers?” Sparkle Hair purrs in my ear.

“Because you shouldn’t drink and derive,” I reply.

“What the hell are you doing working here?” I hiss.

“Sir, please watch your language. This is a respectable fish kingdom, not a locker room.”

A sexy matchmaking goddess of doom who can quote Dr. Who as easily as she can quote Schitt’s Creek, and who has the most gorgeous heart-shaped ass that I can’t get out of my brain, but that ship sailed back at the start of the season, and I don’t look back.

Don’t we? my junk asks.

Is it wrong to junk-punch yourself?

“Take the mother-forking selfie and go away so we can close up, please.”

He was fun my rookie year. But then the old captain retired, Lavoie took over as the team leader, and now he’s Mr. Wet Blanket.

He needs some quality time at the bunny bar.

#TeamLavoieNeedsLove

And right when I think I’ve escaped any more Ares wisdom for the day, he lifts me by the waistband of my training pants, squishing my useless dick in the process.

“To clueless mansplainers. May we never date them, never raise them, and find creative ways to reject them.”

Dr. Muffy Periwinkle?

Please.

No one would’ve come to me for anything anyway, except possibly to inspect their stuffed animals’ upset tummies after a tea party.

“Oh my god, this is so good. I would date this fish. I would take this fish to bed. Have you tried this? Here. Have a—no, you know what? I’ll give you ten bucks to get your own.”

I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I know what I’m thinking.

If my sisters find out my dick doesn’t work, they’re gonna send it a damn care package. And I don’t think I want to know what would be in it.

Dad: I’ve got a lovely buffalo coconut in my butt.

How, exactly, does one unentangle her tongue from someone else’s when there’s an audience?

Not asking for a friend.

“Who died and made you king of sex rules?”

“Veda’s dad.”

“Oh my god.” I choke on a laugh.

Why. The fuck. Is my dick. Obsessed. With Muffy?

Because we like her. Catch up.

Side Note - any book where the hero's junk talks to him is a winner in my book.

I like Muffy more than I hate dead bodies.

Rufus is the cat version of me if I were a little klutzier, a lot more YOLO, and completely lacking in any natural sense of self-preservation. If he understood English, he’d leap out of an airplane without a parachute because he’d heard cats always land on their feet.

Is it wrong to feel like a disaster and not care at all because you’re suddenly realizing that the guy whose place you’re demolishing has a mighty oak in his pants that’s poking you in the butt?

Asking for a friend.

And yes, I’m my own friend. Most days.

I can do this. I can use my magical peen to give Muffy the orgasm of her life.

“Do you even know how to date a woman?”

“Did you?”

Frey and Lavoie both snort with laughter.

“Oh, snap, Murphy,” Klein calls. “Jaeggy got you there.”

“Tell me I’m not wearing breakfast. Do I have part of a smoothie on my forehead?”

“No,” he says softly. “You just—you’re fucking perfect. That’s all.”

I want you to run - RUN - and one-click this book today and understand just why Tyler Jaeger became the man that we all need. And maybe, while you're at it, could you send some love for Lavoie?

#TeamLavoieNeedsLove

Maybe if we all ask for it he might start talking and demand his happily ever after because I feel bad for the guy and really want to see him have happy too. I promise you, you won't regret it (your electronics might if you take a drink while reading, but that's neither here nor there) so dive in to I Pucking Love You today!




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Review: Real Fake Love

Real Fake Love by Pippa Grant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I feel like this book is almost a love story for the stereotypical romance reader everywhere. No, wait, before you go running away... IT'S NOT A CLICHÉ! This isn't just your average very sad, lonely girl meets boy and falls in love story. I mean, it borrows things from that concept but doesn't every romance do that in a way?



Real Fake Love brings us back to the Copper Valley Fireballs (hellllllloooooo baseball!!!), namely one Luca Rossi who's sworn off love, marriage and commitments altogether - and how one very determined (if a touch lonely) romance writer named Henrietta Bacon becomes the reason he learns how to love when he's supposed to be teaching her how to deny love.



Luca's not the best player, he's not horrible obviously because he's in the major leagues, but he's not swinging his bat in the all star game every year. He's also been traded a whole bunch of times and now to the worst team in the league. The man has a chip on his shoulder a mile wide, and really, his well meaning Nonna is totally right. He just needs to be loved and supported. But first he wants to help the Fireballs make a huge comeback and how can he do that when he's under threat of a curse that the consequences of would shake any commitment-phobe to their core? That's where Henri and the most ridiculously lazy cat, Dogzilla, come into play.



And Henri! I feel like Henri is this conglomeration of Pippa's hilarity and wackiness and all of the romance readers out there who fall in love with love at every turn. Hey, who hasn't fallen for the wrong person? Or had a broken engagement or two? There's something so very hopeful about Henri, so optimistic in the face of everything that combats Luca's pessimism at every turn. There were so many moments where that sad, lonely part of me resonated with Henri's desire to be loved.

“Love itself isn’t wrong.” I tuck my hands under my head and stare up at the soft darkness. “But you need to quit loving people who don’t love you back.”

“What if no one ever loves me back?” she whispers.

Tears - she broke me! BROKE ME!!!!! Because she's usually so happy! She seems to embrace her quirks - and no matter what she has this never ending belief in the beauty, and necessity, of love but there were moments in this story that I watched all the little doubts I've always had play out on the page and it made me love Henri even more. I thought I loved the incredible Mackenzie who was wacky and weird and just sooooo much fun, but I always love the heroines who are just super smart and super quirky (*ahem*Felicity fits this bill too!)

Their roller coaster of crazy love story is brought to you with special appearances by... the Copper Valley Fireballs players (and the Thrusters!!!!!!!!), the Lady Fireballs, a team fanbase attempting to choose a mascot, a pooch with a fabulous collar, a clothes wearing lazy bones cat, a rainbow haired social media star, an inconvenient mother, a foul mouthed pirate parrot, and enough emotional and mental torture in the form of comparing lives instead of being uniquely yourself to make you want to wrap everyone up in blankets.

Here - you should have some of my...


Favourite Lines -

“You say potato, I say Lamborghini."

“Do you want to live, or do you want the stairs to eat you?”

“Left!” he yells. “Your other left!”

“I’m a writer, not a truck driver!”

Love is my superpower.

It’s my blessing and my curse.

Because every time I fall in love, I’m not good enough.

I’m never good enough.

And it freaking hurts.

“What is that?”

“She’s my cat.”

“I can see that, but what’s she wearing?”

“She felt like a unicorn today.”

“I can hear you thinking, and your language is atrocious today.”

“I make things up for a living, so if I say it’s a thing, it’s a thing!”

Teaching her how to not fall in love feels like teaching a rainbow how to not sparkle.

An unpredictable, chaotic, klutzy rainbow, but still a rainbow.

“Would yours involve a flaming asteroid made of toilets?”

Luca: Who named your cat?

Henri: Confucius.

Luca: Your…made-up character?

Henri: He’s very real in my head. And no, I don’t need to see a therapist. This is normal for writers.

“Do you also use magic truffle salt and water made with the tears of unicorns?”

My run-down castle with the queen who shines so bright that she makes it feel like Buckingham fucking Palace.

Fuckingham Palace.

Yeah. That’s what I’m renaming my home.

I write books.

Words are tools. And if I want to use the fuck word, I will use the fuck word.

Henri falls in love.

Not only with men, but with the world.

Every. Single. Day.

This book has everything that you would expect from a Pippa Grant story. You will laugh, you'll cry (usually while you're laughing but there are a few very emotional moments), and by then of this one you might even believe in love almost as much as Henri does. I can't wait to see more of the Fireballs - I mean, I'm dying for some Thrusters again, but it's summer time so I'm thankful for all the BASEBALL books because 2020 sucks and I've been denied for a while and this tiny season doesn't count.

Run out and one-click this baby today! You won't regret it!



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