The Guy on the Right

The Underdogs, Book 1

By: Kate Stewart

Narrated by: Aaron Landon, Angie Hickman

Strike One: My mother named me Theodore after her favorite chipmunk.

Not cool, Mom.

I‘ve spent most of my life answering to Teddy because I couldn’t make Theo work.

Except for here. College. The place where all bets are off, and I’ve managed to redeem myself. There’s only one problem, my new roommate, Troy, is football royalty and looks like he stepped off the set of an Abercrombie shoot.

Doesn’t matter, I cook a mean breakfast for his panty parade, and we get along well. And anyway, this year I got the girl. And she’s perfect.

That’s right. Theodore Houseman, former band geek, now marching-band rock star has finally landed the girl of his dreams

Everything is perfect.

That is, until Troy takes a good look at her.

I’m not going down without a fight. As a matter of fact, I’m not going down at all. As glorious as these days may be for my all-star roommate, Laney is my end game.

I may not know much about play strategy, but I’ve been the good guy my whole life. I’ve been listening, and I know exactly what women want. Framed in a picture standing next to me, Troy may seem like Mr. Perfect, but he’s underestimating the guy on the right.

©2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC

#relivingmycollegeyears

TYVM to everyone who rec'd this! ❤ I am loving this so much! It's funny (sooo funny at times!) and a realistic slow romance that leaves you with all the feels. Who doesn't know Madea!? 🤨 Yes...I realize these are fictional characters but I still yell at them lol.

Wow!

Wow! I am impressed with this book! I thought it would be a while bunch of cheesing lines but it wasn't.

I could have done without all the hashtags at the end of most of the chapters, though. #itannoyedme

Loved this!!

Kate Stewart does it again!! Love this truly genuine underdog love story. The male voice was spot on, the female narration was good, loved her southern drawl, at times though I felt she sounded robotic.

This is how it’s done

This book was a masterclass in writing a fun friends-to-lovers. Sometimes I get pissed off at how hard it is to find one of these novels with main characters over 30, like, how about some legit adults and not just zygotes??? But Lainey and Theo were SO fun, and SO drunk on each other, that their youth felt perfect. I lolled A LOT. They really embodied ‘hot girl’ and ‘underdog’ (but also ‘hick’ and ‘city’ then later on 'lady' and her 'knight') without turning those tropes into caricatures. These two were completely likeable and authentic and sexual and hot.

The writing didn't repeat or dumb it down. It had me looking things up ... like wait, snipe hunting?? freelance repo work?? scholarships for band?? Uh... ghostin’ the whip??? 🤯

Likes: the mfc/mmc were committed by the midpoint, so a lot of the story was devoted to letting us feel the feels. Also I loved their clingy inseparable love. Dislikes: the female narrator, the guy should have read the whole thing, he was great. Also the ending was a bit ott for me AND the author used that ‘we need a break to thrive’ myth that so many of these stories use when the mains are young, (ie. solo months in another city, or long solo international vacation, or solo overseas deployment) I hate it.

One last observation, women reviewers who hated this beta male must hate looking in the mirror. It’s obvious that Theo was written using romantic heroine traits. It’s actually a loathing of femininity that triggers people.

Wrong Female Narrator for this Study

I love Kate Stewart and have read/listened to most of her catalog so my expectations are high when it comes to her books and this one was "ehh" at best, although some of this could have been due to the female narrator. I agree with a previous review that mentions the female narrator sounding robotic at times, it was weird and really distracting it took a lot away from the story.