Reviewed by Chris
TITLE: A Little Side of Geek
SERIES: Geek Life #1
AUTHOR: Marguerite Labbe
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 306
RELEASE DATE: May 22, 2018
BLURB:
When opposite worlds collide, it’s anyone’s game.
Proud geek and comic book artist Morris Proctor wants nothing more than to live in semiseclusion with his devil cat and gamer friends. Despite what his well-meaning family thinks, he’s perfectly content with his status quo. The last thing he needs is to date another nongeek hell-bent on changing him.
Then he meets his adorkable new neighbor, Theo Boarman, who doesn’t know Star Trek from Star Wars, but who tempts him like no other.
Theo has spent the last year recovering from the loss of his parents and trying to play both roles for his teenage brother, while working to keep the family restaurant afloat. Dating is the last thing on the menu, especially with a man who thinks the height of dining is shoving a packaged meal into the microwave.
But if Morris gives him one more shy smile or flaunts that kilt he wears so well, Theo will be forced to convince him that a hot summer fling is just the recipe to let off a little steam.
When that fling gets serious fast, Morris has to decide if he’s willing to give his heart to Theo on the chance that they’re a perfect mix.
REVIEW:
Theo doesn’t know a whole lot about geek culture, but he knows he likes the way Morris looks in a kilt. Morris doesn’t know a lot about food that doesn’t come pre-packaged, but he has to admit that he finds Theo irresistible. Neither one of them has the time for a relationship, but a casual fling might just be the thing to keep them sane. It’s not their fault that they can’t seem to keep emotions out of it. Or real life. Or Morris’ cat and Theo’s brother. Or either of their families.
It’s totally not their fault they find themselves falling in love. It just kinda happened.
I think my one big take away from this book is that I liked it…but there was perhaps a bit too much of it to really love.
This story really had a lot of things going for it. I love the geeky nature of it that never really goes so overboard that non-geeks will feel put off. The food was very well described…like, it’s probably not a good idea to read on a empty stomach. Both Morris, the geek, and Theo, the cook, fit together well, but you could also see how their differences could pull them apart if they didn’t put the effort into their relationship. The secondary characters were fleshed out and intrigued me enough that I’ve got bets on the next book in the series. All in all, this book had everything I really love in a romance novel.
It was just about 50 pages too long. At least. There were times when the story seemed to drag, and while each scene was interesting, strung together it made the plot a bit plodding. I honestly can’t say there was any one scene or section that was badly written, but, yeah, I can see a few that really wouldn’t have hurt the story to be taken out. Especially the two chapters from the secondary character’s povs. They really did not add much of anything to this story. They are probably set up for the next book in the series, but they didn’t do any favors to this one, and I can’t quite understand why they made the final cut for this story. If these characters do in fact play central roles in the next book, there was more than enough hints in the Theo and Morris’ povs to set it up…and if they aren’t the MCs of the next book I am at even more of a loss as to why they would take up so much page space in this story. I’m not saying I hated those two chapters, but they didn’t add a whole lot, and with a story that is already suffering from a lack of forward momentum, they only served to add to the problem.
I don’t dislike this book–I’m giving it 4 stars because I felt it had a lot of merit, actually–but I think readers should be aware that this one is going to be a bit of slow-burn. Not really in the relationship, but just for the book on the whole. Things take their sweet time in this story, and if you are not the kind of person who likes hanging around for all the good little character moments and the slow building of a relationship…you are most likely not going to be won over by this one. Even for someone like me, who actually goes out of their way to find these kinds of stories, it can be a bit tiresome at times. I think it was worth it in the end, but I wouldn’t doubt that there are going to be people out there that get half way thru and just decide to jump ship.
RATING: 
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