Double Book Review: Ex-Girlfriends United by Matt Dunn
May 22nd, 2009 by Chloe
Being a sequel to previous best seller ‘The Ex-Boyfriends Handbook’, the book picks up again with main character Dan Davis and Ed Middleton and their escapades with the women of Brighton.
Ed is still happy with personal trainer girlfriend Sam, but Dan is suffering a bit of a woman drought. He quickly finds out that all of his ex-girlfriends have been rating him on website SlateYourDate.com. Dan’s determined to rectify these poor ratings, and Ed decides to help him change his caddish ways.
But just as Ed is finally settling down, a blast from the past makes their way back into Ed’s life to disrupt everything…
As I mentioned, I absolutely adored this book’s prequel, and consequently it got a glowing review from me! I recommended it to a few people who also loved it, so I’m glad it wasn’t just me! I was really hoping for the standard writing to be the same, and the relationships between the main two characters of Ed and Dan to be the same once more. Luckily for me, I was thrilled to discover that it was and within the first couple of pages I was hooked again! Despite it being a few months between reading this book and its predecessor, I found I got into the characters so quickly because of Dunn’s writing, and it was like getting back with old friends.
The previous book chose to focus mainly on Ed’s character and Dan was more of a subsiduary one, albeit most definitely the comic relief throughout the book. This book however follows more of Dan’s life, his disastrous lovelife being the main plot. The idea of a website being created to rate awful men after dates is fantastic, and the way it is done in the book is brilliant! Dan’s got such a bad reputation its not surprising no woman will touch him with a bargepole and his discovery of these reviews is simply hilarious. It’s nice to see the womaniser being taken down a peg or two, btu despite his awful behaviour I just can’t help but love Dan! He’s such a prat but he’s great for it lol!
It was nice to see some old familiar characters come back, from the main pair to Wendy the barmaid and as I said a face from Ed’s past even makes an appearance which throws an interesting twist onto the book and an element we didn’t really get from the first book. Dunn seems to have a really natural way of putting men’s feelings onto paper, yet making it incredibly funny and appealing for women to read as well. Because of this, I can easily see that this is going to be a book that both men and women can read and both enjoy. Women will probably be glad they don’t know any men like Dan and men will be glad that they aren’t Dan! Being written again from Ed’s perspective, you get right into the story and the characters, and just get so absorbed into it, you can’t put it down!
As you probably tell from my glowing review of yet another Matt Dunn book, I just can’t recommend this book enough to anyone who enjoys a fun and easy read that is 100% guaranteed to make you laugh! I would say that you should read the two books in order, so read ‘The Ex-Boyfriends Handbook’ before you read this to set the scene and get to know the characters and why they are like they are in this book. So that’s 3 out of 4 books of Dunn’s I have loved, and I’ll be getting the first of his books from the library soon enough and I can’t wait! It’s a brilliant read, with an easy to read writing style, great characters, great plot and is just brilliant. I loved it!
Rating: 5/5
For a review of the book’s prequel The Ex-Boyfriend’s Handbook, please click here
Posted in 2008 releases, Book Reviews, Rating: 5/5 | 1 Comment »
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