Girls like funny boys (Dave Franklin)

I didn't even want to finish this book. Johnny starts the book as an immature, sex-obsessed guy - but he is a teenager, so his character didn't worry me too much. The descriptions of his sexual fantasies, exploits and so on, seemed utterly unnecessary to me - reading it felt awkward, like I was reading an adult author's fantasies on paper rather than scenes in an imaginary character's life.

The book moves on past Johnny's awkward youth, and the rest of the book is honestly a lot better.

Johnny becomes an even more dislikeable person, though. While he was young, his self-centredness and awkwardness seemed plausible; once he was a man verging on his forties, I found Johnny's cowardice contemptible - any sympathy I had for the teenage Johnny's issues immediately disappeared, especially when the nearly-forty-year-old man starts fantasising, again, about 17-year-olds. But it's a lot less cool when the character isn't 17 himself any more.

As a woman in her mid-twenties, I'm probably the wrong demographic for this book. It disgusted me instead of intriguing me, and I got bored where I was probably meant to feel suspense. I'm not sure what the right demographic would be - possibly a single man who has wasted his life to date and wants to read about a peer.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, though. The main character is utterly unlikeable, and the book was wholly depressing.

*Disclaimer: I received this copy for review via Good Reads, so if I seem too overtly positive about this book, that'll be why.