Mr. Crotchety

by Rich Amooi

[zooloo1983]

Seriously this book made my eyes leak a hell of a lot! This book is different for me than the others I have read, why? Because this book felt to me that it was a man story, not a woman. Yes, we get her voice but for once she is not the forefront of the book and she makes the mistake not the guy! Refreshing Mr Amooi and it works!
This time we are dealing with “older” characters (apparently but I don’t class 40/50s as old so don’t worry). Mr Crotchety, I mean Roger, runs a shoe store and he’s a grumpy, hot, old sod! His nephew Jeffrey comes to stay for the summer, writing a thesis on Roger about his unsociable behaviour. Roger, sadly lost someone to the dreaded C and since then shut himself off from having feelings or just generally being nice to people. Even on his lunch, he’s constantly irritated because he is interrupted by someone who is ALWAYS happy!! Meet Sally.
Sally, too has had a brush with the big C but in a different way. Since then she is just always happy, looks for the good in everything. She’s the best real estate agent out there and ends up becoming Mr Crotchety (!!), I mean Roger ’s estate agent, one small problem with this…well two…they develop these tricksy things called feelings but Roger has his heart set on buying the house that Sally has saved for and loved since she was a child. I mean what could go wrong?
I know I say it every time, but I smiled so much reading this book (and cried). I am not sure why but something about this book felt different from the others I have read. The pace was slower and things took their time to unfold. It was done with such ease. It’s one of the shorter books Amooi has written (according to Goodreads) and it has felt so much more concise and very driven to complete this story. I loved this one, there were no moments of cheese, I felt this was a real love story. A story of a second chance for Roger and Sally, both a bit older, both have been dealt a rough hand in life and dealt with it differently. Yet, they both want the same thing, like everybody, just to be loved for who you are.
There were moments I was crying a lot, especially in the last two chapters. God if anyone did anything like what Roger did for Sally. I would not be letting them go! I can’t say anymore other than it was magical and so so so so romantic!
Mr Crotchety made my heart sing. I devoured this book in an evening (and a 20 mins lunch break) it is such a beautiful story which also made me laugh out loud quite a bit!
Ah, I do not know what more I can say. I just loved it. Everything to me was perfect