Girl Least Likely To Marry

Girl Least Likely To Marry
by Amy Andrews
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

My Review:
I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this book. It was one of those books that you sort-of think is going to be focused on changing the heroine: she's frumpy and bookish, so you think make-over and then she'll get the guy. Which is always a sort-of sad way to go, but pretty often that you find things that way. But this didn't live up to any of those expectations. It took everything in a completely different way that turned out to be so affirming.

Cassie is smart, like genius level smart. And she's been groomed since she was a child to fulfill her mother's unrealized dreams in astronomy. But amazingly, Cassie is totally happy with those dreams. She wants them. They are her own ambitions now and she knows she's smart enough to accomplish them. She doesn't care about how she looks or what she wears or even what anyone else thinks about her. She's often misunderstood, but she really stays true to herself. I found it amazing how well Cassie was written. She really doesn't have any tie to her emotions, but she feels completely ok with it. I wouldn't say she reacted predictably, but she was written so well in her emotion-less ways. You really got that she didn't care about any of these things. They didn't even enter her radar at all and she never chose to change that part of herself because it just didn't matter to her.

And that's part of what made her transformation so heart wrenching. She really didn't have any idea about love or emotional availability. And yet, her body manifested so many things that she simply couldn't ignore it any longer. Even though her brain couldn't process any of the emotions, her heart was able to get through to her by controlling the rest of her body.

The opening scenes of the book, where Cassie tries to write everything off using logic, show just a small slice of the ways her body makes her stand up and pay attention. It's so silly and adorable to see her trying to figure out why she just likes the way Tuck smells.

And that brings us over to Tuck. He's hot, has a great sense of humor, is loved by everyone and to top it off he's secretly pretty smart. He's got a huge list of insecurities and he plays up to people's image of himself whether it's football hero, stupid Texan, or spoiled rich guy. When Cassie makes assumptions about him, he just plays along and sort-of writes her off. But as Cassie opens up with her attraction to Tuck, he lets her see more of who he is. And he is totally ok with whoever Cassie chooses to be. He doesn't try to change her or take her away from what she loves. He doesn't whatever he can to just be with her. And when Cassie just wants to sniff him, he's ok with that too. Definitely some smile-worthy scenes.

Cassie has some great friends who don't exactly try to change her, they really just try to open her eyes to the parts of life she's missing out on. They're there for her whenever she needs them and they really, really care about her even when they don't understand her. They were also able to take her at face value and when she said things didn't matter to her, they were able to accept that. I wish everyone had friends like this.

All in all, a great book by a great author. It's got a lot of the harlequin-esque essentials like the wealthy hero with his own plane, but it's smart and sexy and doesn't just follow the status quo. Not only will I have to read more by this author, I'll also have to look for the rest of this series.