Build A Man

by Talli Roland

[Leah]

Talli Roland has rather rapidly made a name for herself in the Chick Lit world with not one, not two, but three novels released in 2011. I absolutely adored her debut novel The Hating Game, but I admit to being disappointed with her second novel Watching Willow Watts. However, with the promise of her third novel being more like The Hating Game than Watching Willow Watts, I nearly died of excitement when my review e-copy came into my inbox because I expect a lot from Talli. She’s an author I enjoy reading, but she’s also a person I like from what I know of her – she’s always so kind, her blog is a brilliant place to visit, and as such, I was really looking forward to Build A Man and it did not disappoint.

I can always tell how I’m going to feel about a book when I’m relatively early into the novel. If I’m not feeling a novel after the beginning (first 10% / 50 pages) then I’m not going to be able to claw it back and as such novels become tortorous for me. However, I knew pretty much from the first % that Build A Man was a novel I was going to love. It grabbed me and it didn’t let me go as Serenity Holland does her best to become something more than a boring old receptionist, as she tries to get her foot in the door of becoming a tabloid journalist. I liked the moral dilemma as Serenity uses her receptionist position at a cosmetic clinic to get her way into journalism, as she goes “undercover” as a client named Jeremy decides he wants his entire body cosmetically altered. I liked the way Serenity didn’t just use Jeremy though, I liked how they became friendlier with each other, as well.

Build A Man is somewhat different to Talli’s first two novels, not only has Talli changed from third-person narrative to first-person narrative, but the book just seems to flow. I’m not saying her first two novels didn’t flow; they did, but with Build A Man, I just flew through the novel, without paying attention to how much was left or how it was going to go, I just wanted to get to the end. Despite the questionable nature of what Serenity does, I actually loved her. I mean, wow, she was just such a ball of fun. So enthusiastic about things, so seemingly happy and cheery. But it was Jeremy who really blew me away. I wasn’t sure what to expect from him – after all, only someone with so little confidence would want to have total cosmetic surgery, right? But, no. That wasn’t true at all. Jeremy was just amazing. I loved him. It’s like despite what he wanted to do to himself, it wasn’t necessarily because there was anything massively wrong with him, just that he wanted to become something more than himself after being hurt previously. I just wanted to cuddle him and drown in his beautiful green eyes. I didn’t give much truck to Serenity’s boyfriend, Peter, he never really inspired anything in me, if I’m honest.

There was nothing I didn’t like about Build A Man. It had characters I really, really cared for, it had an inspired plot (Talli is a plot genius!), it had warmth and humour and it wasn’t all sweetness and light, either. I loved the book so much that I stayed up until 12.45am finishing it. I never stay up past midnight, but I just couldn’t put it down, I just couldn’t let go without knowing how it all ended and oh God, was it worth it. Was it ever worth it. The ending made me ridiculously happy, and I was flipping the next page button on my Kindle like a demon just to get there quicker as it all came to its conclusion. I can’t wait for the sequel to Build A Man, Construct A Couple, comes out. It has the characters that just DEMAND a sequel. I want to read it now, actually. (Do you hear that, Talli? I WANT TO READ IT NOW!!!). I can’t recommend it enough, it was just awesome and I was sad to finish it, because I’d gotten so into Serenity’s life, so into Jeremy’s story, that I just didn’t want it to end and for me there’s nothing better than a book you don’t want to end.