This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.
My Review:Title: Friends Without Benefits
Author: Penny Reid
Series: Knitting in the City #2
Published by: Indie
Release Date: January 14, 2015
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Devra Woodward
Length: 15 hours and 7 minutes
Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Romantic Comedy
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2019 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2019 Beat the Backlist Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ iTunes
My rating:
Blurb:Friends Without Benefits can be read as a standalone, is a full length 120k word novel, and is book#2 in the Knitting in the City Series.
There are three things you need to know about Elizabeth Finney: 1) She suffers from severe sarcastic syndrome, especially when she's unnerved, 2) No one unnerves her like Nico Manganiello, and 3) She knows how to knit.
Elizabeth Finney is almost always right about everything: the musical merits of boy bands are undervalued by society, “benefits” with human Ken dolls are better without friendship, and the sun has set on her once-in-a-lifetime chance for true love. But when Elizabeth’s plans for benefits without friendship are disarmed by the irritatingly charismatic and chauvinistic Nico Manganiello- her former nemesis- she finds herself struggling to maintain the electric fence around her heart while avoiding electrocution or, worse, falling in love.
3.5 stars — Oh you guys. Yet again I wrote notes for this review a few weeks ago, and then promptly kept not getting back to it. I need to stop doing that, it just doesn’t work for my brain. So if this review is weird, you’ve been warned.
Narrator: OMG, Devra Woodward’s Nico voice was ridiculously sexy, I can’t even. I mean, it made me swoon. The way she would drag out Elizabeth…oh gawd, is it weird to find a female narrator’s male voice that hot? I’m almost disturbed. Her voices in general were pretty freaking awesome. I can’t wait to hear her voice Sandra, I loved her Sandra voice in this one. Honestly, my only complaint is that her Elizabeth sexy-times sounds felt a bit over the top and made me feel self-conscious…but that’s probably just me. Goddamn though, I could listen to her Nico voice all day every day…
Elizabeth was SO HARD to love. It’s not that I didn’t get where her hangups came from, but wow…her reactions were almost too extreme for even me. She had a lot of great qualities too, and I definitely enjoyed her more than I expected to after NSH, but she’ll never be a fave of mine. My heart broke for her and how she would hide her caring and thoughtful nature.
Nico was such a strange mix of complete romantic sweetheart, and dirty talking aggressive hero. I wouldn’t call him an alpha male by any means, but yeah, he definitely had an aggressive streak. I will admit that sometimes I wasn’t sure about his love for Elizabeth either, like how well did he know her? But I changed my mind about that as the book went on.
Their relationship would overwhelm me in real life. The obsessive needy nature is not what I look for personally, so strangely enough their romance wasn’t necessarily the highlight. It’s not that I didn’t like them together, but I just couldn’t always connect with it.
As always with this series, and this author, there were so many solid secondary characters that really made an impact on the story. I loved how sweet Nico was with Angelica, and the way Elizabeth developed a connection with her as well. Obviously the solid knitting group friendships were awesome as usual. In particular, I loved Elizabeth and Sandra together…I really felt that rapport build and solidify during the road trip. And I *LOVED* getting to see Dan a bit more, he’s adorable in his own right.
I will admit that I wish I’d read Neanderthal Marries Human *after* this one, even though technically it comes first in the series. The problem is that the timelines overlap, and I think I would have gotten more out of certain aspects of NMH if I’d read it after FWB.
So yeah. As per usual I think audiobooks is my preferred way to read this series…there’s just something delightful about a good narrator conveying quirky characters. Also, I can’t remember if I planned on rounding up or down, so I’ll round up for the heck of it.
That’s so interesting you wish you had read them out of order. Thinking back, I think you’re right. It might have been more impactful. Great review!
Now I want to hear this book. My favorite one so far is Love Hacked.