Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Not That Easy, by Radhika Sanghani {ends 11/3}

"So, this must be the famous girlfriend," said Chris. I looked at him weirdly. Why was he talking about Holly like that? "Ellie, right?"

I stared at him. He was smiling at me, waiting for an answer. I turned to look at Nick. He was smiling too. What the fuck? Why wasn't he correcting his brother?

No one had spoken yet and Chris's smile was beginning to wane. Holly looked at me curiously as she puffed on what I had now realized was an e-cigarette.

OH GOD. HE'D TOLD THEM I WAS HIS GIRLFRIEND. Nick wasn't my fuck buddy at all - he was my goddamn boyfriend and he hadn't bothered to tell me.

Oh fuck fuck fuck. It was fine. This was a good thing. I could do this. 

This book is the sequel to Virgin, which I reviewed last year, and the main character, Ellie, is back, and still making me laugh. In the first book, she was 21 and looking to lose her virginity; now that she has, she's looking for some one-night stands, so that she can talk with her friends about them and have more in common. She reminds me a bit of Georgia Nicolson in another series I like, and the result is a funny read.

Official synopsis:

Ellie used to be a virgin, but now she’s a woman with sexual experience. Well, some sexual experience. She also has debt, an unpaid magazine internship, and three flatmates who left her with the single room to match her single status.

That’s okay. She doesn’t want a boyfriend anyway—she wants several. And if the sex is exciting enough, her ruthless magazine editor boss can exploit her dating life for a column.

After countless hook-ups, a disastrously fiery encounter with some heat lube, and one orgasm class, Ellie is faced with the sad reality of her sexual ineptitude. But when she starts to witness the emotional wreckage she’s leaving in her wake, Ellie realizes that sex can be hard, and there’s a down side to giving it up too easy.

This book also reminds me of My Big Fat Greek Wedding (movie) because Ellie is Greek, and her mom is a "typical" Greek mom; always worrying about Ellie and Ellie asks her for loans (since she's at an unpaid internship currently), saying she wants to make moussaka or other Greek foods. 

Not That Easy raised a lot of interesting moral questions about "sleeping around," too; Ellie finds herself in a situation where she thinks she's just "good friends" (or f--- buddies) with her initial one-night stand, Nick, but he thinks she's his girlfriend, even though they've never had "the talk" about their relationship, which makes for some funny scenes. Because she's so inexperienced, too, she doesn't realize that he's interested in her, and wanting to be more to her than just a one-night stand.

Sanghani has a genuine character and a great voice in Ellie, and because of that this novel is worth reading; it made me laugh out loud several times, as did the first book (Virgin) since Ellie obsesses over everything and also has a great group of friends to chat with about said relationships/one-night stand aspects she obsesses about.

Not That Easy will be in stores and online on November 3rd. 4.5 stars out of 5.

{Click here to pre-order}

*Blogger note: I found two different covers for this book, I'm thinking the one in this post is the U.K. version but I liked it a bit more than the other one, which is the one Amazon is using.

GIVEAWAY:

Two of my lucky readers will win a paperback copy of Not That Easy!

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Tuesday, November 3rd, at 11:59pm EST, and winners will be notified the next day via email and have 24 hours to respond, or else another winner(s) will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

Not That Easy