Thursday, December 2, 2010
The Numbers Man
Author: Pat Muir
ISBN: 0-9676060-1-2
Publisher: PM Book
Source: Reviewed for BookPleasures
*to price or buy click on the image to the left*
Pat, a sixty-three year old former geophysicist, has divorced and is looking for romance. He believes the key to finding this romance is thru the internet and his choice of dating website. Unfortunately Pat is not good with names, possibly a former career handicap, and instead assigns each woman a number. Pat meets Beth whom he starts to date regularly until she leaves town for a couple months. Soon he meets Donna who also seems a great match for him. While juggling the two ladies Pat is warding off his friend and employees young wife Ruby, who hits on him consistently. If that is not enough his life becomes more complicated as he promotes his book and meets a hot headed chef with a vengeance. His book promoter Sonia, always has good advice but to Pat it’s not always clear which path he should take.
The Numbers Man is a comedic romance about an old man trying to find love and his endless women. Pat knows what he wants but will he find what he is looking for? The novel made me laugh at times. It started and ended at a steady pace but lost my attention in the middle. The novel is fiction but inspired by events that took place in the author’s life. While the reader can discern which parts are most likely real (the author’s name, previous book, publishing company, experiences with promoting, reviews sales and self publishing) the rest is fictional in nature but feels as though it could be true. I would have preferred the author did not use his real name in the book as the main character, along with details that are not fictions such as his prior book and publishing company. Aspects like these left the book feeling like a fictional memoir which was confusing. I found myself focused on wondering what was true versus what was fiction instead of on the story itself. I would have preferred to read a completely fictional account with hidden truth. The author could have easily done this by re-naming the main character and not using other notable facts about himself.
Overall the book was average but fun to read. Rarely do you read a romance where the male is looking for love. This was a nice change of pace. The story was humorous, insightful and interesting for the most part. I would have preferred to read less about Pat’s radio promotions as they started to feel redundant. Key radio promos were necessary but more than that was too much. The novel is written in a diary entry like manner with dates to mark each entry. I enjoyed this format. It helped keep the time frame readily available. I noticed with my copy that the format of printing felt right aligned making the left hand pages hard to read when the words started going into the binding. I had to keep the book open wide which was uncomfortable at point. It would have been better to have printed those pages in left aligned formatting to avoid the spine of the book. I think readers in the target age group of forty and up would most enjoy this novel though any adult reader can easily do the same. If you are intrigued I suggest giving it a try. The novel is priced at $7.99 making it affordable and worthwhile.
3/5
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This definitely sounds different...sort of like chick lit but with a guy as the chick, lol.
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