3 out of 4 stars
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Randy Love at your Service by Shay Carter is a funny, light-hearted story about a young British man struggling to find himself and his place in society.
Born to the Love household, the last of three children, Randy Love was a charmer from a tender age already. He generally manages to get what he wants without much effort and uses this to his advantage. With uncertainty looming whether he wants to return to university to finish his studies or enter the working class, he decides to go to an agency to get some odd jobs while he is on break. Having a successful brother and sister does not concern Randy much and he seems quite content on doing the bare minimum so he is still able to go out drinking with his friends as often as possible.
At first glance, I almost thought Randy was going to become a gigolo. I’m not sure if this misconception was intended by the author with the title and leading play on words in the story... Randy’s behaviour is shameless as he lies and steals his way through the pages. No one is safe as he constantly takes advantage of family, friends, colleagues and even strangers whenever possible. He comes across as a womanizer and has downright childish actions – case in point when he leaves an unwelcome “gift” for his landlord when moving out. True to form however, he manages to redeem himself with a little charm ever so often. Occasionally it seems like he acknowledges that he is not being a respectable person, but then he goes ahead and does something uncouth again.
Shay Carter does an exceptional job at making Randy both likable and detested at the same time. I was personally hoping to see a little more emotional growth and maturing of the character, but the story was well rounded and closed on a high enough note to not require any further explanation from the author.
What I liked most about the book was the carefree wit and the underlying, somewhat hidden, love story. There were many ‘boys-will-be-boys’ moments and a fair amount of imagination went into some of the things he got up to.
At times I did however find the story to be slightly long-winded and having to stop to reference the ‘lingo guide’ (albeit quite useful) in the back of the book, did slow down the narrative somewhat.
I noticed very few spelling and grammar errors. In my opinion, this book deserves a solid 3 out of 4 stars and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun afternoon read.
There is a fair amount of foul language, sexual content and womanizing behaviour, so I would not recommend it for a younger audience or anyone easily offended by these.
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Randy Love...at your service
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Thank you for a great review!
