1 out of 4 stars
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Randy Love is a British young man and a college student who begins seeking professional success, as any man his age would. During his gap year, Randy starts taking us through his adventures while exploring “the real world”, from washing dishes at questionable places to the road of becoming a financial advisor in a major bank in London. This is a light-hearted comedy of someone trying to secure his future, while also having his share of fun on the side.
Randy Love…at your Service by Shay Carter is about 270 pages long, yet fails to create an interesting, solid plot. In fact, the book circulates around the same story-line over and over again. Randy lands a job, then starts to party with either his friends or colleagues, finds a stranger to sleep with or spend the night, and the cycle repeats with every new job he gets. It’s extremely repetitive and becomes simply boring after reading the same plot over ten times.
Randy is witty and sarcastic, finds humor in every situation no matter how serious it is. He’s arrogant and mostly smug because he’s attractive and a bit smart; Randy doesn’t fail to remind us of the fact every single chapter. A certified pervert who thinks the only value of a woman is in the size of her chest and behind, at least for the majority of the book. Very immature and only cares for his own well-being. A perfect example of what you shouldn’t be once you reach your twenties and start searching for a stable life.
Somehow, despite all of the above, people still found Randy charming and a total catch, which I simply didn’t understand. He nailed every job interview without much effort, even when his unprofessionalism was blatantly apparent. He stared directly at women’s chest and behind, and women loved it. They were even the ones who asked Randy to come back to their apartments as if women were lustful creatures who just couldn’t resist Randy even when they knew he was disrespectful and a pervert.
The author failed immensely in telling a realistic story of going through adulthood. There was nothing inspiring about Randy’s story, quite the opposite actually. It just portrayed men as perverts and disgusting, and viewed women as sexual creatures who constantly craved attention and one night stands for their self-esteem. This was not a book about someone trying to stabilize their lives; this was a book about a young man and his countless hookups, indecency and cringe-worthy attempts at jokes that everyone found charming - except the readers.
The book was supposed to be a light-hearted humor, but to me, all the jokes were either cringe-worthy or just fell flat. There were many questionable and inappropriate scenes in the book. One of them I was sure been stolen from a well-known movie, because of how similar they were. Also, there was a lot of British slang that I didn’t quite get, and I doubted many readers would unless British English is their first language. I appreciated the author’s efforts in putting a tiny dictionary at the end of the book; which collected all of the slang used, but it wasn’t a fun experience to constantly go back and forth with every joke made. It only managed to ruin the humor for me. I think the author should have tried to use a more general sense of humor, and not just one tied to a single language.
Another thing that really bugged me was the immense number of minor characters used. There were about 25 chapters, and in every single one, there was at least a character or two introduced. Each one had their brief backstory that you had to memorize, which was impossible to do. To add to it, Randy treated them all the same; with wit, a bit of sarcasm and a bland sense of humor - unless it was one of his many hookups, then add seduction to the equation too. What is the use of many minor characters, if it weren’t going to show us a different side of Randy? Or at least help his character develop and mature?
There were many typos and grammatical mistakes, the book was poorly edited and I found that quite distracting. The author should have put more thought into finding a good editor.
For this reason, I am giving this book 1 out of 4 stars. The story-line became repetitive and boring after the first 50 pages, and it felt like the author was trying to prolong it even when there was no use to. The main character was the opposite of charming, and hardly a good example of adulthood. I can’t think of anyone I would recommend this book to because, to me, it was mostly annoying, inappropriate and not suitable for anyone’s taste.
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Randy Love...at your service
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