An Idiot In Love - David Jester

   2016; 236 pages.  Genre : Coming of Age; British Humour; Dark Romance.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

    It’s what you’d call a mixed blessing for Kieran McCall.  On one hand, girls have always seemed to be attracted to him.  Even way back in elementary school (or whatever they call it over in England) when girls were known to be infested with cooties

    It continued through the higher grades, when girls definitely became more interesting.  And after he’d finished school, women still were hitting him up in the workplace.  Kieran was certainly “gifted” when it came to the opposite sex.

    Alas, there was a downside as well.  Maybe even a couple of them.

    First of all, Kieran was kind of a nerd in school, and bullies took it personally if he flirted with the girls they were chasing.  Second, all the attractiveness that girls and women saw in him disappeared as soon as Kieran opened his mouth.  Amazingly stupid words always came out of it.

    Or even grosser things.

What’s To Like...

    An Idiot In Love is a coming-of-age tale, and we tag along with Kieran as he tries to fathom the complexities of the opposite sex, searches for love in all the wrong places, and usually ends up settling for simple lust.  The plotline is similar to the book Veins by “Drew” and reviewed here, but Drew’s protagonist is mostly obnoxious while David Jester’s is, as the title suggests, an idiot.

    The book is written in English, not American, and in addition to the spelling variations of certain words (favour, pulverise,  etc.) and calling soccer “football”, there were a bunch of strange terms and phrases to suss out, such as: netball, Minstrels and Maltesers (types of candy, I gather), bungled (= bundled), scuppered, football stickers, skint, punters, a spotty waiter, and the mysterious numpty.  I love trying to figure these things out.

    Depsite being a coming-of-age tale, this is not a book for the kiddies.   There’s a lot of cussing, which is the norm for schoolyard and workplace guy-talk, plus Fate puts Kieran through all sorts of adult situations in his search for true love.  Things like nudist beaches, speed dating, getting arrested for public nakedness, and other things (including Rampant Rabbits) that you wouldn’t want little Johnny or Susie reading about.

     The humor is not going to be to everyone’s taste, but I liked it.  The “Pink Panther vs. Monty Python” debate is correctly answered, and I liked the nod to the movie “Aliens”.  Hey, it scared the crap out of me as well.  The book is written in the first-person POV (Kieran’s), and overall I found An Idiot In Love to be a fast, easy read.

    The ending is rather predictable, although I say that about all romance books and movies.  But it was also clever and had a couple twists to it that I didn’t see coming.   I’d call it both logical and a bit over-the-top, neither of which is a criticism.

Excerpts...

    I slumped down next to Max who was hacking away at the paper.  “I’ve got a girlfriend,” I said, my voice trickled out my mouth like it didn’t want to leave.

    Max didn’t take his eyes off his painting.  “Laura?”

    “Jenny.”

    “I didn’t know you liked her.”

    “Me neither.”  (loc. 901)

    She held out a hand, and offered a smile.  “Doctor Peterson,” she said.

    I mumbled something, snapped out of my trance and said: “Kieran,” suddenly not entirely sure that was my name.

    She sat down opposite and took a folder out from a bag she had carried in with her.  I studied her intently.

    “So, Kieran,” she spoke slowly.  “What brings you here?”

    She was joking, but I answered her anyway.  “Two guys claiming to be police officers.  You?”

    “A naked guy carrying a wooden leg.”  (loc. 6062)

Kindle Details....

    The Kindle version of An Idiot In Love sells for $10.99 at Amazon, while the paperback version goes for only $7.69.  You can draw your own conclusions about that.  There is a sequel, An Idiot In Marriage, which also sells for $10.99.  David Jester has several other full-length books to offer (mostly thrillers), as well as several novellas in the horror genre.  The novels are priced in the $9.99-$12.99 range; the novellas at $0.99.

She was a nine year old underachiever with the charm of a fairy-tale stepsister.  (loc. 32)

    There are a couple of quibbles.  The writing style is what I call storytelling mode:  in the “Kieran did this, then he did that” format; and without any depth-of-character.  For this sort of story though, I think it suffices.

    The way most of the females instantly cotton to Kieran is a bit hard to believe, but it has the upside of keeping the story moving along briskly.

     The most serious deficiency is the need for some competent editing, in particular to correct the lack of commas when a person is directly addressed in the dialogue.  To borrow an oft-used example, there is a huge difference between “Let’s eat, Timmy” and “Let’s eat Timmy”.  This got distracting after a while, and there were numerous  other “spellcheck errors”.

    6 Stars.  An Idiot In Love wasn't a spectacular read, but it entertained me, and sometimes that’s all you ask a book to do.  Add 1 star if you can relate to any of the awkward situations that Kieran endured.  I did.