Crazy Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams | Spoiler-Free ARC Review

Title:Crazy Stupid Bromance
Author: Lyssa Kay Adams
Publication Date: October 27, 2020
Age Range: Adult
Genre(s): Contemporary, Romance
Source:NetGalley
Pages: 352
Add to Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Book Depository

Synopsis

A hacktivist and a cat café owner decode the friend zone in this romantic comedy from the author of Undercover Bromance.

Alexis Carlisle and her cat café, ToeBeans, have shot to fame after she came forward as a victim of a celebrity chef’s sexual harassment. When a new customer approaches to confide in her, the last thing Alexis expects is for the woman to claim they’re sisters. Unsure what to do, Alexis turns to the only man she trusts—her best friend, Noah Logan.

Computer genius Noah left his rebellious teenage hacker past behind to become a computer security expert. Now he only uses his old skills for the right cause. But Noah’s got a secret: He’s madly in love with Alexis. When she asks for his help, he wonders if the timing will ever be right to confess his crush.

Noah’s pals in The Bromance Book Club are more than willing to share their beloved “manuals” to help him go from bud to boyfriend. But he must decide if telling the truth is worth risking the best friendship he’s ever had.

TW/CW: grief, death of a parent via cancer, death of a parent via the military, discussion of past sexual assault, toxic masculinity

Review:

Bromance Book Club – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Undercover Bromance – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

HUGE THANK YOU TO NETGALLEY AND BERKLEY ROMANCE FOR PROVIDING ME WITH AN ARC IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW!

It’s no secret that the Bromance Book Club series is one of my all-time favorites. This series has tackled so many important topics, while still managing to be light-hearted and assessable. Crazy Stupid Bromance follows Noah and Alexis, eighteen-month after the events of Undercover Bromance, and reminds me why I love the friends to lovers trope so much.

“I try to assume the best in people until they give me a reason not to.”

–>plot<–

This book has a couple of underlying plot threads but mostly focuses on family and healing. Noah and Alexis grew close after the events of Undercover Bromance, and are now best friends. One of the things they realized they both have in common is losing a parent. Alexis’s mom passed away due to cancer a few years before the start of the book and Noah’s father was killed when serving in the military when Noah was in his teens.

Grief is also a huge part of this book. Noah and Alexis both have to come to terms with the fact they haven’t fully processed these deaths and the repercussions this lack of healing has resulted in. As someone who just passed the two-year anniversary of a difficult death, I really resonated with this conversation of grief. I definitely resonated with Alexis when she talked about avoiding the hard emotions in lieu of the positive ones and how this has halted the healing process.

“There was no trauma competition in this room.”

This also leads to the other large theme of this book – healing. Alexis is healing from her sexual assault and her café is a place for other victim-survivors to go to in order to start their healing process. Noah and Alexis are also forced to deal with their unresolved grief and need to decide if they’re going to take the difficult steps to complete the healing process.

There was also a really interesting conversation about family and found family in this book. Alexis saying “we’re related, that doesn’t make us family” was such a powerful statement. Too often you have the notion of blood resulting in obligatory behaviors and you have people dismissing the value of close family members with absolutely no blood relations.

This book did a fantastic job of balancing these serious and at times heartbreaking moments with other light-hearted moments in the book. Like the other books in this series, I found myself laughing out loud following the antics of these guys. I also enjoyed the nods to Alexis having to deal with a literal Karen, though Karen was the actual worst.

A main theme of these books is addressing and counteracting toxic masculinity and I feel like this book did the best job of not feeling preachy, but also showing that guys who know what not to do still have room to learn what to do.

“But I promise you — and this is a promise I won’t break — that a day will come when you feel at peace again.

Final Thoughts:

This series is one where I will find myself reading every installment, regardless of who we’re following. I absolutely adore this series and what it’s trying to do. I love that this series will address series topics while remaining light-hearted. Noah and Alexis both have difficult backgrounds and a lot of room to heal, but they’re able to remind readers that some of the hardest things to heal from are also the most important. I feel the need to reiterate, this one has definitely been my favorite so far and I hope it’s one you choose to pick up later this month.

*All quotes were taken from an advance copy and may not appear in the final text.*