Review: Reasons I Fell for the Funny Fat Friend by Becca Ann

Reasons I Fell for the Funny Fat Friend by Becca Ann
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goodreads summary:


It’s stupid to fall for your brother’s ex. It’s even worse to enlist another’s help to win the ex over. But Brody is desperate and Hayley, his partner in American Sign Language, is more than willing to lend him a few tips. 

She’s the school’s matchmaker,’ and with her bizarre and positive personality, Brody finds her easy to talk to, even about the most awkward situations. Hayley’s tips seem to be working, but as Brody learns more about his matchmaker, he starts finding reasons to spend time with her, and not the girl he thought he was in love with. 

But Hayley isn’t ready to fall for anyone. Labeled the “Funny Fat Friend” within her group, her self image makes it impossible for Brody to share his feelings without Hayley shrugging it off as a joke. 

Convincing her Brody can, and did, fall for the “Funny Fat Friend” turns out to be harder than simply falling in love.


My review:

I think it's happened to all of us. You see a book the Amazon recommendation carousel, the cover snags your eye, the title snags your attention, the synopsis looks good, and, what the hell, it's only $3 so why not?

Then you read it and you groan...knowing suddenly why.

Every now and then, though, you get one like Reasons. You can't put it down, you hate the 'falling asleep' feeling and fight to stay awake so you can keep reading, first thing you do on Sunday morning after checking email is coffee, Kindle, and the next thing you know you've lost three hours.



That's what happened for me with this book. I've spent, literally, all morning reading because I needed to get to the next reason.

For the purists out there, let me add a small codicil. This is not A Deep Meaningful Read. This isn't a Groundbreaking Emotional Study. This is a boy's story of how he fell in love. It's his story, it's told entirely in his voice, and with all the good and stupid boy thoughts mixed in.

Yes, I'm still laughing at him calling his room the "ass room" because it smells like ass. Mostly because this is what my 19 year old and I both call his. And it does. I should own stock in Febreeze by this point.

Back to the story. This beautiful, touching, funny story. I loved the way it was laid out. Because of the title, you expect the chapter titles - but when you finally find out the reason, they mean so much more. Especially when they finally come out in the story itself. One of my favorite scenes.

I loved that the characters weren't perfect - they made mistakes, made me want to reach into the pages and shake some sense in to them. I also loved that not everything was explained out (like Hayley's aversion to swearing) because that wasn't what was important to Brody. The why didn't matter, just that she had that aversion and he tried to stop. It's one of those things you suspect will be discussed later, or off screen if you prefer, but not a vital-to-the-story thing.

All in all, I got just what I wanted from this book - a pleasant surprise, a lovely story (and if we're honest, a written out fantasy for all the not-cute-and-skinny high school girls like me who were always playing wingman to their guy friends because they knew there wasn't any way the hot guy would ever be into them and covered that up with laughter.)