Undercover Bromance By Lyssa Kay Adams Book Review
“You’ve been living with some kind of undercover identity for so long that you’ve forgotten who you really are—-a good, decent man.”
(pg. 313)
About
Author: Lyssa Kay Adams
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Series: Bromance Bookclub book 2
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Other Bromance Book Club Book Reviews
Synopsis
Braden Mack thinks reading romance novels makes him an expert in love, but he’ll soon discover that real life is better than fiction.
Liv Papandreas has a dream job as a sous chef at Nashville’s hottest restaurant. Too bad the celebrity chef owner is less than charming behind kitchen doors. After she catches him harassing a young hostess, she confronts him and gets fired. Liv vows revenge, but she’ll need assistance to take on the powerful chef.
Unfortunately, that means turning to Braden Mack. When Liv’s blackballed from the restaurant scene, the charismatic nightclub entrepreneur offers to help expose her ex-boss, but she is suspicious of his motives. He’ll need to call in reinforcements: the Bromance Book Club.
Inspired by the romantic suspense novel they’re reading, the book club assists Liv in setting up a sting operation to take down the chef. But they’re just as eager to help Mack figure out the way to Liv’s heart. . .even though she’s determined to squelch the sparks between them before she gets burned.
Reviews
Spoilers Contained Below
To my bros,
I swear, Lyssa Kay Adams is my new favorite author, HANDS DOWN!!! She can sign me up for her fan club, her bromance book club President, or whatever because I am a HUGE FAN and I would jump over backwards or stay in a room with the Russian just for Lyssa Kay Adams.💛
MY GOSH DO I LOVE HER WRITING!!
Let’s just start with that because I have read numerous authors as a bibliophile, but no one is as blunt, crass, sassy, clever, steamy, and all around amazing as Lyssa Kay Adams is. She can make me laugh and then clutch at my heart and then laugh some more! Like, who needs a stand-up show when you have Lyssa Kay Adam books?!
Anyway, enough with my gushing about how much I love her writing, but let’s get into the actual book review 😆.
I love Braden-FREAKING-Mack. I loved him in the Bromance Book Club and I loved him in this book even more so. With the Bromance Book Club, we met debonaire, charming, lady’s-man Braden Mack. He would flirt with anyone and everyone and everyone would fall to his smile and big arms. With this book, he’s the same because that’s who Braden is, but we also see Braden vulnerable, open, conflicted, and a mess, and it’s beautiful; it’s such a beautiful journey to see how far he has come from the character we knew to the person he is at the end of the book.
Braden was still a lady’s man in the beginning of the book and I found it funny how everyone was betting on him and Gretchen not lasting. Then it becomes a running joke throughout the book about placing bets if Braden gets with Liv or not. We love friends who bet on his love life. The freaking Russian kept winning 😂.
I have to give it to Braden though, he has sooo much respect for women and knows how to treat them. He’s the type of guy who goes out of his way to make sure a woman feels comfortable or like she has everything and I loved how romantic he was. He wanted Gretchen to have everything—-to spoil her—but at the same time it was kind of his way of “romancing someone.”
“There’s a big difference between romancing someone and loving someone.”
(pg. 4)
Which is highly true. Braden was romancing Gretchen the whole time because he wanted to impress her enough to be his girlfriend. I understand, and heck, I think the sentiment was cute, but I do have to agree with Gavin and Gretchen when they told Braden that he had to be vulnerable enough to let someone in rather than making this big show of how much he cared for people. Because at the end of the day, a person is with someone for who they are, not how much money they have and how much they spend on you. Or I would hope that’s not the reason a person is with someone 😅.
But I would just like to say though, he was being VERY frivolous with spending $1,000 on a cupcake? But I would just like to say though, he was being VERY frivolous with spending $1,000 on a cupcake? Who the heck spends $1,000 on a cupcake? That’s excessive to me! Heck, I know people who’s rent costs that much. It better be a real worth it cupcake. I loved how Jessica asked Liv, “What does the cupcake taste like?” Liv was like “Ostentatious greed.” 😂
I Love Liv and her sass mouth! It’s honestly the best part of this book.
You know what’s not the best part of this book?
FREAKING SICKO ROYCE 😡
I don’t even know where to start with him.
He’s the filth of the earth. OH, wait that would be an offense to the filth of the earth because he’s lower than the filth of the earth. He’s garbage, he’s trash, he’s dumb, he DISGUSTS ME. People like him disgust me. No one should EVER take advantage over anyone because that’s just wrong. PERIOD. I just wanted to Booper Sock his head into the next day. Gosh, the way he took advantage over sooooo many women, including Jessica was, disgusting. She was in a vulnerable position with her mom and with trying to go to school, so he used that to get what he wanted and he made her feel scared for speaking up about how the situation was wrong. What really made my heart hurt was how Jessica agreed with Royce when they tried to cover it up as nothing, like, “oh, he just came out of the bathroom and his ding dong was sticking out.” Like, no one’s buying that. And that hurt because Jessica shouldn’t have felt wrong in this situation because it wasn’t her fault. It was his. He’s a grow a** man who knows what he’s doing and I hated that he had this control over her and was taking advantage of her for his sick hormonal needs.
I swear, I wanted Liv to beat him up! But Liv’s reaction was kind of funny when she said she was scarred for life 😂. If I was in Liv’s situation, I would honestly not know what to do. And it made me think of other people in real life who were put in that situation. And my heart hurts. Because it’s so hard to know what to do: do you say something or act like nothing happened? Of course, I wouldn’t act like nothing happened because I would be angry and want to say something or to help the person get out of the situation. It’s hard though, because it all depends on the person in the situation and what he/she is comfortable with. That’s something I really appreciated that Lyssa Kay Adams included in this book. She made the storyline behind sexual harassment seem authentic, and gosh no am I saying that this book is anything close to what a real person who has been sexually harassed feels or has gone through, but it puts things in perspective. And it’s books like these that people might pick up and it will change their ideas of this concept they knew about, but maybe didn’t know a lot.
So I respected that. I admired Liv in how tenacious she was in wanting to help Jessica and get her out of Royce’s because that highlighted how Liv cared for her well-being. I also liked how far Liv took it by looking out for Jessica by getting her a job first so Jessica knew that if she did stop workmen for Royce, that she would be financially secure/safe. But when talking to Jessica about the situation, Jessica was very reluctant and pushed Liv away. I understood where Jessica was coming from because she was scared of Royce and she was scared what would happen if people found out she was in the middle of everything—-how she didn’t want to be seen. The conversation that Liv had with her seemed very tense. What stood out to me in that conversation was how Liv did place blame on Jessica like it was her fault for not speaking up or doing something to stop this when in no way was anything her fault. If Jessica wasn’t comfortable speaking up, then that’s her place to be and Liv shouldn’t have made her feel guilty for it. And if Jessica wanted to stay at Royce’s because she was scared, Liv couldn’t push her to quit, but could still offer her a hand to hold onto when Jessica wanted to leave.
I loved how Braden realized Liv was speaking in this way to Jessica and how he called Liv out on it. Because I think sometimes as people we tend to victim blame the person—–why don’t they want to help? Why don’t they want to speak up? Why don’t they want to stop this? Why don’t they just leave?—–like all these questions have such simple answers. They don’t. There’s so many things to a story that a person doesn’t understand the why’s or the how’s or the what’s a person does. And Liv needed to pause and really reel it in to see how Jessica was feeling.
“We’re talking about men in positions of power using their authority, whether it’s professional or personal, to manipulate through fear and intimidation. It’s the same damn thing. It’s all one big cultural continuum.”
(pg. 109)
Let’s just clap for Brayden for being a MAN and for knowing it. He knows himself as a man and knows that men of power abuse it in a negative cycle and I appreciate that there’s a man in the fictional world who can recognize that. Real men need to own up to it as well. Because a lot of the time men in power do use it to intimidate and create fear and it’s wrong. Power should be used for good—-to help others.
I also liked how Brayden mentioned how he knew Royce as “innocent” and thought nothing much of him before Liv told him Royce sexually harassed someone. It was such an interesting perspective because sometimes we do know people and we have this glossy image of who they are that we don’t realize that there might be someone or something darker/deeper hiding beneath. Brayden knew Royce for five years as a normal person and yet all this time he was harassing women.
I really have to say though, nothing works better than women’s intuition. Nothing. Because when a woman has a feeling about something, for the most part it tends to be correct and Liv and all her friends didn’t like Royce in the first place, not just because he was a horrible boss, but maybe their intuition was telling them that he was off. Well, now Liv knows why.
I also appreciated the different types of feminist conversations Mack, Liv, Hopper, and all of the characters had because I think it reflects very real dialogue that people think, but don’t actually have conversations about because feminine and sexual harassment issues are complicated and touchy subjects no one likes to get into.
“You men need to go after your own. We’ve been fighting this s*** for too long.”
Hop held up his hands. “What’re you yelling at me for? I didn’t do it. I’ve never sexually harassed a woman in my life.”
“Oh, don’t you pull that not all men cr** with me. The reason men like Royce Preston get away with it is because every other man in the world enables them.”
“How’d I become the bad guy?”
Mack cleared his throat. “I believe what Rosie is trying to say is that bad guys get away with it because the good guys look the other way.”
(pg 88-9)
And then later in the book the bromance book club discussed this:
“I’m just saying that if we’re going to end violence against women, tis’ up to use to do it. We have to get after our own.”
(pg 159)
I think every guy needs to read this book to pick up a BIG LESSON. In the great words of Adelaine Morin, girls should support girls. Girls have been supporting girls. Girls have been standing up for the hardships we face as women, but yet when men do things, they don’t stand together, they either fight it out or ignore it. Guys typically don’t band together. With something as serious as sexual harassment, it’s predominantly a male taking advantage of a woman and yet it’s the females who are standing with each other to fight against it, when it should be the males who stand with each other to call each other out on how they treat woman. Because it is not the females fault in a male harassment situation. Boys need to stand up and own up to their faults and mistakes. And when Hop said he never harassed anyone, I was like, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t care about the issue or do something about it. No one said Hop harassed anyone—-just because he was a man. What they were saying was that it’s not about you! It’s about the larger issue in men ignoring the issue because they don’t see how it concerns them when they are not the issue themselves. But it is an issue when men stay silent to what’s going on because it only makes it seem like what males are doing (sexually harassing) is okay when it’s not. By not speaking up it doesn’t make the problem go away—-“bad guys get away with it because the good guys look the other way.” And I never thought of it like that before, but it’s something everyone should think about. Just because you might be part of the problem, doesn’t mean that you can’t put yourself in one’s shoes to understand what the problem is and to try to help or to educate yourself on it.
Kind of going with the BLM movement recently too, anyone who is not black, will never understand what a black person lives/experiences on a daily basis. But we as people can educate ourselves and learn their history and stand with them. And there’s this whole idea that “oh, well not all cops are bad,” or a cop might say “I’m not racist,” which might instigate the narrative to the cop that “I’m not the problem.” But the situation isn’t about YOU. It’s about the issue at hand. Yes, you might not be a bad cop, and yes, not all cops are bad, but there are bad cops out there and it’s your/our job to stand up against those who do act immorally because if we let the bad cops go about their way, that’s every bit of us being as bad as them—-letting them continue doing wrong knowing that their doing wrong. This reminds me of the Martin Luther King Jr. quote of : “To ignore evil, is to become an accomplice to it,” and the quote of “Our lives begin to end when we become silent to the things that matter.” In the first quote, it’s all about if we know something is wrong and we ignore it, we are contributing to the problem, letting it go on—-being a silent accomplice. And to the second quote, when we stay silent, we lose. We lose our morals, our values, the fight. So we have to have difficult conversations, speak up, educate ourselves, and know that it’s okay to say things that are wrong, but also learn from it to be better.
Because gosh only knows we’re not perfect. And when it comes to complex conversations, we’re all bound to say something wrong or maybe offensive that we didn’t realize was offensive, but we shouldn’t not talk just because we’re scared to do so. So even though Hop spoke mistakenly and even if Liv spoke wrongfully at times, I don’t fault them because they didn’t know better. But what matters is that they learn and that they go forward from there trying to do better. That’s what mattered.
“My brand of masculinity was crawling through the jungles of Vietnam, getting my [butt] shot off before you were born.”
“And we appreciate your service, but what we’re saying is that your brand of masculinity is tied to the inevitable degradation of women. And no one is the better for it.”
(pg. 159)
Hop represented the generation gap between the accepted masculinity back then and femininity and progression today. I really didn’t fault Hop for some of the things he said because he grew up in a different time where it was okay to say those things and get away with it; He was a war veteran of the Vietnam war where he had to be toughened up. So he would naturally say things that may have been offensive. He carried this toughness through life—no one called him out on his rude, derogatory comments until now. And since he was called out on it, it can give him a space to change conversations he has with others to be more respectful. I really liked that Mack called him out on some of the rude and offensive things he said to Rosie. Hop would get mad at Mack, but I think deep down Hop was mad at himself too because he knew Mack was right.
I thought it was also sweet how Mack invited Hop to a Bromance book club meeting and Hop got all dressed up for it to meet everyone at the diner. And then everyone gave Hop a look and Hop thought they were being ridiculous because a big group of burly men read romance books. 😂 But that’s the beauty of the bromance book club! I honestly loved it in the beginning when they went to a real bookstore and asked the lady at the desk where the romance section was 😂. If I saw a group of famous, good-looking men at a bookstore, I would Joe Goldberg it and follow them! 😆
But back to the conversation that the bromance book club was having with Hop, it was a difficult conversation, but it was needed. They needed to have that so Hop knew that there was a gap where his jokes were not funny anymore and were in fact degrading. And I think sometimes, we think just because a person is older we should respect them and just let them be, but in a kind way like the bromance bros did, we have to politely correct our elders to the conversation changes that are happening now.
Hop started to tick off a laundry list. “I think women should get paid the same as men for the same jobs. I think women should have equal representation in Congress. And there better be a woman president before I die. but I also think we should be able to tell some f******* jokes.”
“Did it ever occur to you that the reason women don’t have equal pay or that no woman has ever been elected president is because when men get together they bond over these jokes?”
(pg. 160)
I’m with Hop when he said that there better be a woman president 👏🏼. I mean, it’s about FREAKING TIME!!!! I’m looking at you Michelle Obama 🙈. I would vote for her.
But I also agreed with what the bros said in how saying those jokes are part of the reason women aren’t respected enough in the world and why they don’t get equal pay or they aren’t represented. Because men think they “rule the world,” and they think that it’s funny to joke about how women are “weak,” because it makes them feel more powerful and like women are inferior to them, thus the less respect women have. It’s no joke to call women any kind of slur or whatever because it’s rude. And when men bond over these rude jokes, it makes that derogatory joke more than a joke, but a glue between people that makes them think of women as lesser.
“You shouldn’t have to care about a woman to recognize that the sexual degradation of all women is a problem. You should recognize that it’s wrong simply because they’re human.”
(pg 160)
These are the things men need to be aware of and to stop with it. Stop making woman the clown of your These are the things men need to be aware of and to stop with it. Stop making women the clown of your jokes and stop turning a blind eye to other men who are in the wrong. If a man is saying something disrespectful, CALL HIM OUT!!! In a nice way, of course! Be like, “That’s very disrespectful to women and that kind of joke is degrading.” And if a guy gets mad at what you say, then he is not a man. Because a man would be like, “You know, what you’re right. Thank you for telling me, let’s have an open conversation about this.” Or “I’m sorry.” No, a boy would throw a fit because he’s petulant and just wants to feel powerful.
These are the types of conversations we need to have more in the world, especially among guys and what they talk about. Absolutely. And as a girl who is writing this, this may be fiction, but just hearing what these guys are talking about opened up my eyes. That says a lot. And I still have to learn a lot and educate myself on how I can speak up and be a better woman for my gender, but change starts with us and we have to look out for each other.
Along the way, Jessica finally came around to quit Royce’s and go under the protection of Mack and her. Along the way, Jessica finally came around to quit Royce’s and go under the protection of Mack and her. But Royce was still coming at them strongly. Royce knew that Liv and Mack knew about him being a sexual harasser and he was doing anything to take them down or instill fear into them. He had his cronies follow Liv and Mack to this bar where they were initially trying to scout Jessica. But instead, they got stuck in an awkward bathroom situation with a girl and then eventually a bar fight.
The moment that skeeed me the heck out was when they saw Royce in person after all his threats. He went to one of Mack’s bars, smiling like he was all innocent and everything—-the disgusting pig he was. When Mack saw him, I WAS SOOOOOOOOOO READY for him TO THROW DOWN!!!! 😆 I kept saying to myself, hit him, hit HIM, HIT HIM!!! Where is the Braden Mack defense kicking in? Royce deserved a conker to his face! He deserved worse. But Mack kept it together while I was losing it. I couldn’t even handle it. And the fact that Royce tried to make it seem like Liv was “unstable” and “crazy,” RILED ME UP!! It’s just like a man to blame a woman as “unstable,” or “crazy,” like she’s the problem. I’m not sure if that’s gaslighting, but it seems like it to me. How dare he? EXCUSE ME SIR, you’re “unstable” and “crazy.”
AND DON’T GET ME STARTED on how he wanted to start a rumor that Liv slept with him.
IN HIS DREAMS!!!
Or wait, that’d be DISGUSTING. He doesn’t deserve those types of dreams because he’s scum that pays women to do it for him because he’s DISGUSTING.
But I absolutely loved it when Liv got in the middle of everything and was like: “I should’ve kicked you in the shriveled-blobfish [ding dong] of yours.”
Suck your shriveled-blobfish [ding dong], Royce. YOU SUCK!!
Can we take a pause and mention Sonia (Mack’s bar worker)? I absolutely love her! Her and Liv are highly alike and I love that. I love the banter they have with teasing Braden Mack and how they feed off of each other’s sass. It’s iconic. They make great friends. I love two strong, sassy women! 🧡
Speaking of Liv and friends, when going through this whole plan to take Royce down, Liv confided in her best friend, Alexis. Alexis used to work at Royce’s but quit to start her own caffé where she has a bunch of cats. Alexis seemed like a loyal, good friend. But when Liv first mentioned the story to Liv, in my heart I KNEW. You could just feel Alexis discomfort at the story and how closed off she was. Women intuition and good writing, I tell you. When Alexis was pushing the story down and telling Liv not to get involved, I knew that it was because Alexis was harassed as well and she didn’t want Liv to figure it out and eventually make her feel like she had to speak up about it. Because maybe Alexis wasn’t ready to discuss that part of her life, and that’s fine. But when the Russian, Sam, and Mack snuck into Royce’s office one night to get the files of all the women he did things with and paid off, they found Alexis’s name on top of the file.
The whole going to the office thing was a whole sneaking in montage within itself and I LOVED IT!!!! I was cracking up SSSSSOOOOOO much and I just couldn’t stop.
UGGGGHHH! I mean, let me just say what we’re all thinking:
The Russian is the star of the series 😂
I kid you not, he’s the most HILARIOUS character I have ever, ever read and I have read a plethora of books and no one, no one comes close to being as funny as the Russian.
I literally cannot with him. He’s sooo good as a character and so well written. He’s the guy who says the least but it’s the most.
Here are just a few of my favorite Russian moments because all my book notes practically say, “I LOVE the Russian!”
The Russian pounded his fist. “I beat him up.” Live waved her hands. “Nope No beating anyone up.” The Russian stuck out his lower lip. Rosie rushed over with the cookies to sooth him. “Don’t feed him any cheese,” Mack said quickly. Liv looked over. “Like, after midnight, or . . .?” “Just whenever.”
(pg. 133)
The Russian slapped a palm on his forehead. “Are you dying?”
Mack knocked his hand away. “What the f***? No. I told you I didn’t sleep well.”
“That is why you are ugly today?”
“What the f*** is wrong with you?” He said.The Russian shrugged. “I’m a hockey player.”
It actually did explain a lot. “I’m not ugly today. I’m tired.”
“You’re kind of ugly. It’s the eyes. Very red. Ugly.”
(pg. 156-7)
I mean, he basically called poor Mack ugly 😂.
Mack pointed to every man at the table except Hop. “F*** you. F*** you. F*** you. And f*** you.”
The Russian looked up. You did not say f*** you to me.”
“F*** you too.”
(pg. 165)
I could just imagine the Russian sitting down, raising his hadn’t like a n innocent child, saying this. He’s sooo funny!
Or when the Russian dressed in all black for their sneaking in trip and how he brought a lunch box with food because he was hungry. That brings us to the sneaking in part where the Russian had to let one rip. His farts are deadly. Of course, when the Russian needed to let nature do its course, they had to be hiding from people coming into the office, but the Russian let one rip anyway and it was just hilarious how the anticipation was because of a fart. It’s just beyond randomly normal and comical. Lyssa Kay Adams knows how to match suspense with comedy 👌🏼.
Throughout all the Russian scenes, I kept wondering what his real name was. Because in the bromance book club book, the Russian had a name, but I forgot. But I loved how at the end when Mack told the Russian to finally break some balls, he called the Russian, Vlad.
His name was Vlad!
I still like the Russian as his name.
I swear, if Lyssa Kay Adams is reading this, I think we all want the Russian’s story. I mean, we ALL want that book 😂.
He was the highlight of the book for me for sure.
But enough with the Russian, we were talking about Alexis. Yes, later on Liv went to Alexis café late at night to confront her about being on the list. And in my head, I thought Liv was rushing into it a bit insensitive to what Alexis might have gone through.
“Your name is on the list! . . . Why is he paying you? Why are you protecting him!”
. . . “You have a chance to help me expose him. Right now. And you’re not willing to do it. So I’m sorry, but that makes you no better than any of the men who’ve covered up for him.”
. . .”You let me work there and never even warned me. After you left, you didn’t even want me to know what he was like.”
. . . “You have a responsibility to other woman.”
(pg. 259)
This all came off highly judgmental. Liv was blaming Alexis for being harassed like it was her fault that she found herself in the situation in the first place and that she didn’t leave. And like I mentioned earlier, it was in no way shape or form Alexis’s fault. At all. And Liv was too worked up with her anger about Royce that she displaced that anger on Alexis because it was easier to fault her for not just leaving the situation when Liv didn’t know what that’s like. And Liv saying that Alexis didn’t warn her also placed blame on Alexis like Alexis should have spoken up and therefore it’s her fault that this has gone on for years because she didn’t say anything. Honey, if Alexis wasn’t ready to share, she wasn’t ready to share. Don’t you dare blame her!
And does she have a responsibility to other women? Maybe. But this is Alexis’s story and experience and she has a responsibility to herself and her truth first and foremost. So I don’t blame her for not speaking up if she wasn’t comfortable. It’s not all in her hands.
. . . “Are you serious? All you’ve talked about since the minute you got fired is how you’d never stay in a situation like that and you can’t understand a woman who’d let this happen to her.”
And I was proud of Alexis for calling Liv out for blaming her because, no, Liv didn’t understand what any of them had been through.
“Because you use weakness as a weapon. You’re so ashamed of your own mistakes in life, so afraid of your own fragility, that you accuse everyone else around you of being soft just for the crime of basic human frailty.”
(pg. 260)
Alexis really hit home with this one on Liv. Because Liv does tend to push people away based on their own mistakes because she sees weakness as a weapon. It goes with how she grew up with a dad who never loved her and how maybe she put her love into him when she was younger and how he always disappointed her with never reciprocating it, so she stopped putting her feelings out there because she thought it made her weak. And that now translated to others.
I just wanted to hug Liv because she deserved better than her dumb father.
“Alexis was right about me. I am judgmental. I’m so scared of my own weaknesses that I punish other people for theirs. I . . . I don’t make it easy for people to trust me. To love me.”
“Whoever made you think that, they don’t deserve you.”
(pg. 294)
Liv pushed people away because it was easier. It also went with how her dad pushed her away and never loved her the way she hoped. I mean, what TRASH that when Liv surprised visited the dad, that he told her that she wasn’t worth it or something like that. The dad was absolute trash in turning her away and never trying harder to reach out to his daughters. That really hurt Liv because if her own dad didn’t love her, it made her feel like she could never be loved. It was difficult for her to trust people and for her to let others in because she didn’t want to be hurt again. It also explained why she was so tough on the outside with her brash rudeness, and in Gavin’s words “crankiness,” but Liv was actually someone genuinely sweet and wanted someone to lean on sometime. But having a father figure—–someone strong to look up to—–who she couldn’t lean on, it taught her otherwise. It explained why she was very independent and didn’t want to rely on anyone. I respected Liv for wanting to build her own life by herself rather than accept Thea’s offer of giving her money to start her own restaurant. Because accepting the money would mean she needed help—-that she was weak—–, but it also insinuated that Liv didn’t work for her own title of having a restaurant. I also thought it was admirable and kind of cool how she lived on a farm with Rosie and helped around. It was very cute.
I really liked the grandmother-daughter type relationship that Rosie and Liv had. Rosie truly did give me gran gran vibes and I think that’s why Liv meshed so well with her. Rosie also cared so much about Liv and I liked how she would give Liv days to mope around when she was sad or to ease back on the rent when Liv lost her job. Rosie was always looking out for Liv and her best interest and it genuinely felt like she was a role model for Liv when it came to feminist issues. It was also fun to see what Liv picked up from living on a farm 😂. I mean, I never knew chickens didn’t have vagianas 😂. Now, I do. You learn something everyday, am I right?
But I really enjoyed this scene where they had a deep conversation and Rosie included Liv in her will and how she told Liv that she was worthy of love. We are all worthy of love and sometimes people make us feel like we’re not and that’s their loss. They don’t deserve you.
“Whatever was broken in that person, it was their wound. . . you don’t have to carry the scar of it anymore.”
(pg. 294)
There’s an infamous quote I like to say, but it’s, “Hurt people, hurt people.” And I genuinely believe that because people hurt others because they come from a place of hurt and they want others to feel that pain. Her dad came from a place of hurt and he hurt Liv and Thea, but it was no longer her scar/wound to carry anymore. She had to let it go and be better than that hurt—–to let hurt drag her down. And I think she needed to hear that for herself as well. Because something was not necessarily “broken” in her, more so hurt, and she needed to stop hurting or pushing others away for fear of being more hurt.
“Fear is a powerful motivator, but so is love.”
(pg. 295)
The overarching love quote of this book.
So let’s get into Braden Mack and Liv. Because I called it since the last book when he ate her lo mein and laid his eyes on her that he was going to fall for her. It seemed like Liv was his match because she was so brazen and outspoken that she would put Braden Mack in his place. I really liked the whole banter with Mack telling Liv that she was going to like him one day. I also just LOVED their banter throughout the book and the jokes they had with the chicken vagainas, people, and all these other things. But I also knew that for them, these jokes were a front for strength and their real feelings for each other. It’s easier to joke about things rather than say things that are real and meaningful.
The way they first kissed was highly built up and fast. I mean, pushing her against a wall outside of a bar? That’s quick escalation right there. And duh, we all knew she liked him at this point and how could she not?
I mean, Mack is the epitome of a gentleman with a snarky mouth. He’s like a teddy bear. Truly.
The man has a bookshelf in his house. Check.
The man has a huge house with a pristine kitchen. So he’s CLEAN. Check.
The man freaking reads books. Check.
The man has a good sense of humor. Check.
The man loves kids. Check.
And the man highly respects women. CHECK CHECK CHECKITY CHECK.
I mean, what more could she ask for in a man?
Like Braden Mack is such a good man.
I kid you not, when he was first touching? kissing? Liv, he asked her if that was okay. He was very consensual and polite. He worshiped women.
“Men didn’t deserve the gift of women.”
(pg. 113)
And I loved that moment at his bar when this lady was by herself, watching her husband chat it up with his friends. Mack went over to him and chatted her up, not in a creepy I’m-hitting-on-you way, but in a polite, man-your-guy’s-dumb sort of way. And then Mack sent a drink over to the guy telling him to pay attention to his woman or get out. I mean, the RESPECT he has for women is amazing. Everyone needs to get themselves a Braden Mack.
I also liked how he made sure to do everything at Liv’s pace. He never pressured her and he tried to be what she needed in the moment. I also respected how he looked at how she might feel and how he acted in response to what he thought she might do. What I mean by that is that he knew Liv would probably close herself off after being vulnerable and they would “go back to normal,” but he always tried to banter with her or give her space and time to come to him when he was ready. I mean, he’s thoughtful too? She was losing out on such an amazing man.
I also loved how open he was about his feelings and loving her. Because Liv just thought she could have a fling with him, but she couldn’t. I mean, why would she want to after all the positives I listed about him? But she was scared to fall in love with him because of men in her life who constantly hurt her. When Liv went to that gala thing and Royce told her about Braden Mack’s secret things fell apart real fast.
If I’m being honest, Liv’s reaction to what Mack did was kind of ugh, like girl, stop avoiding him and making him feel pained when he had a huge secret that really isn’t a big deal compared to how closed off you’ve been about your life to. Like cut my man’s some slack! 😆
Then there was this moment after she had the talk with Rosie and went back to her place and saw a book. The bromance book club pick and she read it. I absolutely loved that moment as well because Liv’s not much of a reader, but she read this and it goes to the page with the quote above about the characters in this book scared to fall in love given everything in the past. It reflected their lives well in how they both needed to let go of things. The male character in this book had to make a choice whether to be with her or not, and he thought that fear was a powerful motivator, but so was love. Because love makes the world go round and yes, it’s scary, terrifying to put yourself out there and fall in love without someone by giving that person your absolute trust, but we have to do it scared. We have to let love win even if we are fearful of getting hurt.
So I loved how after reading that, Liv wanted to make things right.
With Braden, he was going through a lot with everything. I knew something was up with his backstory. I kind of guessed that his father was abusive based on the dialogue of how the mom would touch her shoulder, how Braden wanted to move her out of that house, and how he tensed up about his father. I thought maybe Braden Mack beat him into oblivion and that’s why he was “dead,” or maybe the father was just “dead” to him because that’s how much Braden disliked the dad. I didn’t know.
But then we found out that the dad was abusive, he murdered someone, and was now in jail, it made sense why Mack hated him. It also made sense why Braden changed his last name from McRae to Mack. I wonder where he got the Mack from? If I was Braden, I would have changed my last name too. I get how the news of this might be shocking to Liv because he basically lied to her this whole time, but I would have given him grace because that’s not something that’s easy to come forth and say. And it’s not like Liv was spilling her guts about anything either. So she could have processed it and then communicated with him in an understanding way.
“I’m just a man with a heart. . . Whether my name is Braden Mack or Braden McRae. I’m just a man with a heart, and you’re breaking it.”
(pg. 286)
I’m just a girl with a heart, and I BROKE when he said that. He was soooo open with his feelings towards her and it hurt my heart how he felt so broken inside and that he thought he would never get a happy ever after. That’s what sucked a lot because Braden is a hopeless romantic and he wants a wife, a family, and a home—–the happily ever after—-but he thought he never deserved it because of the things he kept to himself. But he did deserve love.
Honestly, there’s no better group of friends than the bromance book club. I absolutely loved the way the men came together to help Braden when he was falling in love and when he fell in shambles. Throughout it all they were there for him. I loved how Gavin and Thea gave both of them support on trying the relationship out. I also liked how all the bros gave advice to him because Braden was always the one helping everyone out.
Oh, and I absolutely loved that we found out how the book club started. Brayden started reading books when he was in the hospital when his mom was getting surgery and he saw a book there and he read it. Those books helped him in more ways than one and they taught him a lot about heroic men. And I loved that because as a reader, a lot of the times you will hear people say, “books saved me.” And for me, they did. I was in a dark place until I picked up a book I truly fell in love with and that was it for me. And for Braden it was the same feeling. Because books have a way of taking you somewhere else in the world, time, or place and makes you feel joyous, angry, conflicted, heart-wrenched, or clear. It has a way to bring new perspectives and fresh clarity to a situation and it truly does teach you things. And I was happy books were there for Braden.
Everything that Braden learned and grew up with made me understand how he turned out the way he did—-the utmost respect he had for woman, why he always tired to be chivalrous, and how caring he was. Because he’s seen the worst of men, but he wanted to be better.
Braden after the fight with Liv, reminded me a lot of Gavin in the beginning of the Bromance Book Club and how out of it he was 😅. I loved how all his friends got his butt out of bed and how they brought him food and cleaned his house. LIKE, EXCUSE ME??!! They just cleaned his house for him like nothing. That’s true friendship right there👌🏼. I also loved how they never gave up on him by trying to get to the root of his hurt. It’s what the bros do: interventions, discussions, and digging deep. Gavin said all these rude things about Liv and I absolutely loved how Braden spilled his guts about how much he loved her and why because it highlighted he saw the real her. And that’s what Gavin was trying to get out of her. But then Malcom said this:
“Did she end it or did you walk away without a fight?”
(pg. 311)
And I was like, “Malcom, POP OFF!” 👏🏼 Because Braden knew Liv walked away when things got tough and instead of fighting for her, he walked away too. And from a Colleen Hoover book I remembered she said how a relationship ends when both people stop fighting for each other. And that reminded me of this. And Mack’s biggest fear was that Liv wouldn’t need her and I think this goes with Mack’s caring nature and being the protector for his mom. I also felt because Liv was very independent, he was scared that she was better off without him, but she did need someone to lean on sometimes. The bros helped him realize that he needed to keep fighting for him and to try. I also loved the bro hug they had when Braden started to break down and cry. I LOVE A MAN IN TOUCH WITH HIS EMOTIONS AND WHO IS NOT AFRAID TO CRY. I love love love the bros 🧡
What I loved even more was how Thea showed up to his house in the middle of the conversation and was ready to rain down on him for breaking Liv’s heart, but then she was like:
“I come over here all riled up, ready to call you eom creative names for breaking my sister’s heart, maybe even kick you in the balls, and instead you have the audacity to stand there looking like that.” She waved her hands at his general state of pathetic loserdom. “How am I supposed to make you feel like sh*** when you’re already there?”
(pg. 315)
I swear, I LOVE Thea too. She’s what I want to be when I grow up 😂.
But you know what else the bromance book club is known for?
Grand Gesture time. I swear when they said Grand Gesture time it had the effect of someone saying Avengers assemble 😆. I love love love them.
While they were assembling, Liv was planning to go after Royce by herself, hence why Thea went to go smack sense into Braden. Before everything though, Liv went to Alexis to make signs right with her, which was highly needed because I think both people said things that they might have wanted to take back. And I liked how Alexis was done with Royce and wanted to take him down with her.
The turn of events for Alexis and Jessica to want to help Liv was kind of quick if you ask me, but the bond that they had at the end was sweet—–we love girls supporting girls.
I love the whole climactic movie-esque writing of the end with how there was traffic to get to the event, so Liv had to run to the place and then Mack ran to the place too because he wanted to be there for Liv. And then when Liv saw him, she said “Braden-freaking-McRae.” She used his real name 🧡. He put helping her on the forefront of what was important in the moment, so he ran with the papers to expose Royce at the cookbook release party, but they were too late to switch the papers.
What kind of didn’t make sense to me was why Liv wasn’t there when all heck broke loose and Alexis Jessica and the girls rampaged into the room to call Royce out. I mean, Liv spearheaded them all together too. It made more sense to me if she was there with them in the actual moment that they took Royce down. I loved the after moment when heck broke loose and Royce went into the locker room and Braden and Liv were there to rub it in his face that they had him. And then the recording of Royce saying he paid people to keep quiet played through the room. I mean, there’s no hiding behind a confession like that. I also appreciated how Braden was done gigot “undercover” as this Braden Mack person, but being true to his backstory and who he was. The fact that he was able to be vulnerable and real. And that Braden McRae person is pretty great, no matter the name.
I thought Royce should have gotten more time for what he did for years, but I think that was strategic on Lyssa Kay Adams’ part because in today’s world, typically, if you’re a wealthy white male, you tend to get away with things easily and don’t actually get blamed for the actual problem. So her writing it like that was to highlight the injustice in how sexual harasses who should get more time, don’t because of the obvious injustice in the criminal justice system. Honeslty, if you sexually harass someone knowingly, you should be serving FOR DECADES with a HIGH BAIL because actions like that is beyond wrong and should be punished as so.
After taking down Royce, Braden and Liv finally had the talk they needed to really let each other in and I loved that. It was a long time coming. I also liked how she did fall for him in the end, just like he told her she would. I kept laughing at how all the bros gave him money because he finally had a girlfriend 😂. I also LOVED it when the reporter guy bursted into the room and was like, “Who are you?” And Braden was like, “The bromance book club.” He seriously thinks he’s part of the Avengers. Might as well be for how heroic all the bros are. I enjoyed the last words in how Braden was finally going to have his happily ever after he dreamed of with a woman who made him a mess, how challenged him, who pushed his buttons, but whom he loved beyond words.
The epilogue was sweet too and I liked how we know that they get engaged, but I was like, HONEY, Braden, where’s the freaking ring my friend? I would have liked to have seen a ring!! It should cost more than his cupcake!!! 😂 It’s also cute that he hired her as the main pastry chef of the new restaurant he was always planning on opening. I can’t wait for Liv to thrive with that because she deserved it.
Such an amazing rollercoaster of anguish, love, and laughs that I really could not put down. The only Such an amazing rollercoaster of anguish, love, and laughs that I really could not put down. The only thing that was different from the last book was the amount of book blurbs. In this book we only got one book blurb thing to reflect what the characters were going through in real life, but that’s okay because I feel like this book didn’t need it with everything going on and it made more sense to focus on those topics and conversations than more words for book blurbs. I would have liked to know what happens to Rosie and Hop and if they’re going to travel together. I hope we see them again because I love Rosie and her farm. I also felt like Noah’s character just showed up out of the blue. Like a random van man? 😂 That’s not creepy at all. That reminds me, I kept laughing when they were going to the gala thing and Noah had a van that said free puppies on it 😂.
I can’t wait to know more about Noah in the next book because there has to be a story there.
Anyway, what was your favorite part of the book? Least favorite part? Anything I mentioned that you want to discuss more about? Who’s your favorite bromance bro? Let me know below in the comments as I love hearing from you all 💕
I hope you have a beautiful day whenever and wherever you might be reading this.
And as always, with love,
Rating
5 Full Bloom Flowers
Characters: I LOVE the Russian. I LOVE Thea. I LOVE Braden Mack/McRae. I LOVE Liv. I LOVE Gavin. I LOVE Malcom. I LOVE Rosie. I LOVE LOVE LOVE everyone in this series.
Plot: This book touches on somewhat touchy subjects and a lot of feminist ideas, but these are all subjects that are done well in this book and is definitely worth the read to gain a new perspective or to just open you eyes on having these types of conversations with others in real life.
Writing: Lyssa Kay Adams writes with such an unabashed sense of humor; with honest, vulnerable conversations; and absolute love.
Romance: Steamy, hilarious, and romantic 🙈