Book Review: “The List” by Joanna Bolouri

*****WARNING: MATURE CONTENT*****

Phoebe Henderson may be single, but she sure doesn’t feel fabulous. It’s been a year since she found her boyfriend, Alex, in bed with another woman, and wine-fueled nights of relationship analysis with her best friend Lucy have done nothing to improve her dating situation.

Faced with another year without love, Phoebe confronts her fears and decides to forgo romantic love altogether. She comes up with THE LIST: ten things she’s always wanted to do in bed but has never had the courage to try. One year of pleasure, no strings attached. Simple, right? In a chaotic, embarassing, exhilarating, and ultimately transformational year of self-discovery, Phoebe finds surprises, friendship, confidence, and even love, through good and bad sex.

To be honest, this book was exactly what I expected; witty, comedic, erotic and a book that you’d pick up if you were in the mood for a light read. Regardless of its “averageness” I enjoyed reading about Phoebe’s sexual adventures. At times, it felt as if she was just being a slut and other times, I could relate to her need for self-discovery.

I also loved the characters although they sounded immature at times. Phoebe’s friends were the most fun to read about. They have her back when her boyfriend hurt her in the worst way ever and they have her back even when she made bad decisions. However, the MVC (most valuable character) of all has to be Oliver. He is the right amount of cool without coming off as arrogant or entitled. He is possibly one of Phoebe’s few friends who were totally honest with her throughout the entire novel. I wish I could say that this book didn’t have a predictable ending but I’d be lying. I knew that from the time Phoebe mentioned this hot best friend that she’s known since high school, Oliver would be involved in her “sexual experiment”.

While it was quite entertaining to read The List, there are a few things in the novel that I completely disagreed with. For starters, throughout the entire book Phoebe keeps relating passion to sex. I think that passion could be anything from staring into the eyes of your lover to holding their hand and feeling butterflies occupy your stomach. It doesn’t have to involve sexual intercourse. The other thing I disagreed with is Phoebe’s taste in men. Sure, she could be considered middle-aged but the type of men she describes as having a panty-dropping crush on seemed very average to me. Then again everyone has their preferences.

Overall, it was an awesome book and I do plan to reread it in the future.

Rating: 6/10

Book Info:

Publisher: Quercus (January 6, 2015)

Length: 159 pages

Source: ARC

Genre: Erotica, Romance

Completed: February 2015

Leigh-Ann Brodber

Leigh-Ann Brodber is an upcoming enthusiastic journalist. She’s written book reviews, film, stage production and food articles for various websites, and she’s also a born and bred animal rights activist, although she doesn’t think she’ll ever give up her rights to eat chicken. She has helped out at her local hospital many-a-time by indulging in weekly chit-chat with patients under a program called Candy Stripers. She also recently started getting help for her long term Facebook addiction, she swears.