Review: Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys

Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys by Kate Brian
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Goodreads summary:


When she was nine, Megan Meade met a group of terrible, mean, Popsicle-goo-covered boys, the sons of her father's friend -- the McGowan boys. Now, seven years later, Megan's army doctor parents are shipping off to Korea and Megan is being sent to live with the little monsters, who are older now and quite different than she remembered them.

Living in a house with seven boys will give Megan, who has never even been kissed, the perfect opportunity to learn everything there is to know about boys. And she'll send all her notes to her best friend, Tracy.


My review:


This was one of those times that my real life probably got in the way of my starting out with a good impression. Put it down to having two teenaged boys (though honestly, she utterly nailed the teenage boy part of it) and the fact that I don't know any parent that would send their sixteen year old daughter to live in a house with seven boys - half of which were around her own age. Or put it down to spending 21 years as a Navy brat and another 21 as a Navy wife and knowing just how orders work...and that you're told well in advance of a change of orders, especially overseas. And that for two career officers of high rank (which they would be to have a sixteen year old daughter) to be sent to Korea, for two years, isn't something that's likely to happen.


Again - something probably only other service wives/brats would cotton to but since the premise didn't ring true, the story started out in the negatives. I was able to set it aside, though, because the story itself did grab me.

I loved Megan's emails to her BFF in Texas, and probably because I have two teen boys, I loved the way they acted...like boys. Walking around in their boxers without a care, leaving the bathroom looking like something out of a truck stop that hasn't seen a good cleaning in decades, all of that. I loved Miller, totally associated with Regina being so thrilled to have a girl in the house for a change. I hated Hailey with the intensity of a thousand suns an she totally earned it.

I seriously loved the way she showcased the soccer - and that Megan was a hardcore player. The author did an excellent job of explaining the action sequences in the practice - the way Megan took the ball up the field to how the illegal hits tripped her up and flattened her to the grass. I also loved that Megan was a serious player and took it all in stride. That part was brilliantly done.

In the end it comes down to...well, the end. Without too many spoilers it fell flat to me. No clear resolution at all. It just sort of...stopped. And mostly, the one defining thing was Megan's crush(es) with the McGowan boys and as the story wound down, after the dramatic climax, there wasn't any reunion. There was the main conflict resolution and then...boom, a motorcycle, an ultimate frisbee game, what could have been a great reconciliation and then...the end.

If we'd just seen that one reunion - the two together after their aborted Moment of Truth. But it wasn't meant to be. Still, I enjoyed reading it but it won't be one I go back to again.