Neanderthal Seeks Human

A Smart Romance, Knitting in the City, Volume 1

By: Penny Reid

Narrated by: Jennifer Grace

This is a full-length, 115,000-word novel and is the first book in the Knitting in the City series.

There are three things you need to know about Janie Morris:

1. She is incapable of engaging in a conversation without volunteering TMTI (too much trivial information), especially when she is unnerved;
2. No one unnerves her more than Quinn Sullivan; and
3. She doesn't know how to knit.

After losing her boyfriend, apartment, and job in the same day, Janie Morris can't help wondering what new torment fate has in store. To her utter mortification, Quinn Sullivan—a.k.a. Sir McHotpants—witnesses it all then keeps turning up like a pair of shoes you lust after but can't afford. The last thing she expects is for Quinn—the focus of her slightly, albeit harmless, stalkerish tendencies—to make her an offer she can't refuse.

©2013, 2014 Cipher-Naught (P)2023 Cipher-Naught

A romance with an IQ - cute!

This is a cute and clever romance. The narrator was great too. The two drawbacks are: 1) the excessive use of the word "however" and 2) lack of XXX content. If you're looking for a contemporary romance with no smut but good dialogue pick this one up.

It had so much promise

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Probably not! I didn't enjoy it so why would I make someone else listen and be disappointed.

Would you recommend Neanderthal Seeks Human to your friends? Why or why not?

Same answer as above.. why are you people asking the same question?

Which character – as performed by Jennifer Grace – was your favorite?

Elizabeth.. she seemed sane.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Nope..

Any additional comments?

This book is over descriptive while not being descriptive enough.. How the author manages that I don't know.. but for this volume to be as long as it is and when it FINALLY get's to the love making the description of it is more drivel and nonsense.. that was irritating..

Then when the incident at Quin's building is revealed and his bodyguard (WTF was the point of those guys) says what he says (I don't want to give it all away in case someone chooses to suffer through this) all I can think was.. WTF.. (1) You didn't stop what went down (2) You didn't reveal yourself because if you did she wouldn't have left.

In these areas I felt the author was lazy.. I'm not sure I can listen to any other book in this series.

Well, I tried but I won't be continuing the series

After 11 hours, I'm done. Luckily, it is a well-written book and Jennifer Grace performed it well, so I didn't feel like I wasted time. I laughed in some cases, but mostly got annoyed with the repetitive internal conflict by this so-called intelligent human woman with a penchant for expensive shoes.

"Why are you even interested in me?" - from the *cough* heroine 11 hours into the story.

Me while listening: "Why indeed..*eyeroll*"

It's more that neither character really gives the other any tangible reason for wanting to date outside of physical appearances. She's close-minded, cowardly, judgmental and remarkably naive where he is manipulative, controlling, and close-lipped. Neither are very honest about their emotions and wants. It's almost like she has a social/ mental disorder and he's a wealthy type-A modern male looking for an easily controllable mate; not very different from her ex-beta-male-boyfriend.

I'm surprised they made it together at all with all their dancing around the subject of "does he/she like me enough to...".

I think the really dumb thing was that she's completely clueless to who runs the company she works for (What the what!?) during the majority of the book. Why is she intelligent? Because she's good with numbers and acts like a human Google search engine?

And he continues to do things for her without her permission or input: ordering food, having guards keep an eye out for her, researching her and her family, etc. And it's not really questioned - she thinks about it but she never asks him why he does it. He doesn't seem to respect her.

I'd say they're about to enter a really fun co-dependent relationship forever on the brink of emotional/ mental abuse: he'll buy her everything, she'll question everything, they'll go back and forth like an emotional ping-pong table where she wants some "freedom" and he wants to "take care of her", he'll shut her up with orgasms and she'll question everything again. So, her first relationship without the good sex and hot alpha male. Super *eye roll*

I don't regret it but I won't be continuing the series.

Arrggghhh.....

This is one of the most irritating books I’ve ever read.
The heroine might be book smart but she is sorely lacking in common sense, her very long diatribes in her head makes me want to pull my hair out and scream while doing so. It gets pretty old when someone has such low self esteem, why the hero likes her is beyond me, I wish we could’ve gotten his side of things, because just her one sided view is immensely frustrating and does not make her likable to me. I tried through out the frustration to like this book but couldn’t.

Why is she this stupid?

I’m only on Chapter 9 and I sincerely hope that she goes through some major growth so I’ll try to give it a chance. For her to have the immense intelligence that she is written to have she has less ability to string facts and clues together than most third graders. I have truly known and interacted with individuals with autism who are more aware than this chit. There are elements of their banter that is engaging and entertaining but she’s dense and whines like a adolescent girl and it has gotten old quick. As I stated before I’m hoping that her character will grow but I cannot say that I am hopeful

very funny

I really enjoyed this one but I can't help but wonder that if I weren't listening to it but reading this story all the big words would've left me lost, dazed, and confused all together I loved this story though!!

Delightful read

Having never read this author, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this novel, but I am definitely going to be reading the rest of the series. The author really inhabited the FMC and although we only got her perspective throughout, she was still able to give the MMC humanity in such a taciturn portrait. I generally am used to dual perspective in romances, so there was definitely much more to discover without it. Compelling, but pretty clean romance scenes with just beginning kisses and fade to black.

Neanderthal Seeks Human

This was a funny story. I didn't realize that I had the ebook version till today. So I will be rereading it again. But I will remember the narrator and her funny way of telling this story. Here is a woman who when a situation doesn't go her way spouts out trivia facts to get over her discomfort. It is funny the many different things she comes up with. And the man who makes her spout out more than she is used to just raises his eyebrow when she does go off. Janie and Quinn met while she was working at a company her boyfriend's father got her the job. But when she caught said bf cheating she was fired. Quinn is a mysterious man who seems to pop up whenever she is need of help. He offers her a job. She doesn't realize it but he is her boss's boss. And not just another guard like she thinks. To find out that he is very rich has her doubting herself all over again. The many drama episodes that follow her had me laughing out loud a lot. Will they get their own happy ending or is he forever going to be a 'Wendal' and her becoming one of his slamps?

I hated the heroin....

I like the storyline, its different. I liked most of the characters. But I hated the heroin. Her random musings were ok at start, but became irritating too soon. Some frankly aren't even funny. I mean what a hot mess, and this was supposed to be 'smart' romance. I facepalmd multiple times, thinking how stupid is this girl. And that incessant need for approval!! I stopped the count of 'I can't date you' statements from her mouth, when clearly she wants the guy to oppose her and tell her otherwise. The hero should actually get an award for tolerating her. I was really hoping midway that the guy would say 'ok, let's not date then' and this idiocy would end. But well, you can't have it all in life😅. Needles to say I couldn't finish the book.

Enjoying the laughs

Love getting into the characters minds. Made me feel better about the way my mind works. I now laugh out loud at myself when my mind has a detour to analyze or to trivia.
Now - onto book two . . . ;oD