How To Find Your (first) Husband by Rosie Blake.
Published: 2nd June 2016 by Corvus.
Paperback: ISBN-10: 1782398627
ISBN-13: 978-1782398622
Available to buy on Amazon UK/Amazon US.
‘Isobel Graves moved to LA determined to be the Next Big Thing. Instead, she is dressed as a giant prawn handing out fliers promoting a fish market. Rather than attending glamorous parties and dating exciting men, her evenings consist of watching box sets with her sort-of boyfriend, whose idea of romance is a late-night drunken text. Where did it all go wrong? When Isobel catches sight of Andrew Parker, her childhood sweetheart, in the background of a TV news story she feels it’s a sign. If she’d stuck with Andrew everything would have turned out better. Now she just needs to find him…Join Isobel as she travels from LA to Devon and to a remote Malaysian island in search of true love.’
I would like to start off by saying a massive thank you to Corvus and of course Rosie Blake, for giving me the opportunity to review the book before it is released!
As soon as the book came through my letterbox, I squealed and danced, much to the amusement of my two year old. To be fair, look at the cover, how can you not squeal and dance at it? Now add the title to the equation and it’s highly intriguing!
Have you ever had to dress up for work? No, I don’t mean by wearing something a different colour, or tartan or even dress down day. I mean dress up to look completely different. Yes? What did you dress up as? I dressed up as Betty from the Flintstones for work once, in a busy supermarket, on a Saturday….I still cringe now. Although, ha, after reading that Isobel had to dress up a prawn for her job in LA, my embarrassment soon faded!
Isobel moved to LA to land a career in Television, after all it was LA, what could wrong? Instead of living the high life as she had dreamt about, she was handing out fliers dressed as a prawn and a tomato. Not at the same time of course. But in the back of Isobel’s mind, she has always thought about her the guy that just disappeared from her life. The guy she has had a soft spot for, for many years. I mean, he shared his lunch with her at school, how could you not love a guy for that? Isobel is determined to pick up where they left off, if only she knew where he was….
Ah young love with the tales of the playground. Kiss chase, ‘marriages’, arguments because you didn’t wait for someone at lunch time; remember those days? Isobel does! I read the prologue, frowned in confusion, thought ‘what the’ once or twice, and then laughed like a hyena. That was my response after reading two pages. I had high hopes for the rest of the book and I was looking forward to delving into it with that sort of humour. The book didn’t disappoint at all. The flashbacks that happen frequently within the book are a work of art, pure genius on Rosie Blake’s part. Not only do you have the grown up Isobel trying to find her way in life, you read about the younger side to her in the flashbacks and it is brilliant. The lengths that Isobel goes to find the answer to her ‘what if’ is absolutely bonkers, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if many women (or men) had done that! Do you take the chance, or not? Despite it being bonkers (in a good way I must add), the obstacles that Isobel is faced with, alongside the sticky situations that she puts herself in makes hilarious reading. Don’t get me wrong, I did feel a bit sorry for Isobel on multiple occasions, especially when the sticky situations turned into incredibly cringy situations. Rosie Blake has managed to turn embarrassing situations into ‘brush it off’ situations. Imagine that you had a bad first date, and then turned it into a positive thing and ended up laughing and happier than before. Done? That’s how Rosie Blake has written this.
Each situation is completely realistic, every character is unique with realistic tendencies as well. Instead of a book having the ‘typical’ ‘handsome and rugged’ man aka Mr Darcy, it has a man who isn’t out of anyone’s reach because you’ll see someone like that walking down the street.
Isobel’s mum is absolutely crackers and she is one of my favourite characters in the story because she doesn’t give a rat’s tail about anything, and she comes across as ‘being at one’ with herself. But the other side of her shows that she does and says what she wants and couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of it, including her husband! I found that every character in the book had their own story to tell, and Rosie Blake had them tell it in their own special way.
‘How to find you (first) husband’ is such a fun, hilarious and wonderful read. I did not want to put it down at all. I just wanted to stay with Isobel and see what else she could get up to as she is fascinatingly bonkers. This was the very first book of Rosie’s that I have read, and it definitely won’t be the last. Everything is on point with this book, the storyline, characters, humour; just everything. The only downside to this book, in my opinion, was that it had to end. I cannot recommend this book enough and it is definitely one of my favourite books that I have read so far this year (& I have read over 30)!
Rosie Blake, you are a genius.
The Writing Garnet 