Just the Sexiest Man Alive by Julie JamesMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
THIS WAS A GREAT BOOK! I was tempted into it by The Group (the Speaking of Audiobooks group), and partway in I admit I was sorta shaking my head, thinking No, it's too much like that inner fantasy we all had as impressionable pre-teens that some celebrity would think we could be best friends if we could just meet them in person. But no, the author - and bless her, the narrator Karen White - had such a great voice for this story. The tone almost bordered on snarky, but never really crossed the line. Our heroine, Taylor, was a smart, sassy and sarcastic lawyer, and that smart, sassy and sarcastic tone drove the entire story. It wasn't about a fantasy celebrity realizing he could fall in love with a non-Hollywood woman - it was about a woman staying true to herself and still managing to find herself in incredible circumstances. The more caught up Taylor got in the Hollywood scene, the funnier the story became, until at the end I was laughing out loud non-stop! But it's not over-the-top, or farce - it's just funny situations and a heroine that always has a better come-back than anyone else. The last line left me laughing for several minutes!
The narrator really nailed the tone and tenor of the story - I'm going to have to find other books she's narrated, cuz she's good! (apparently I'm not her only fan; her bio indicates she's narrated over 40 books)
Taylor is a hot-shot young lawyer from Chicago, on loan to her firm's LA office for a big case in her specialty, employment law - specifically sexual harassment in the workplace. Coincidentally, hot-shot actor and Sexiest Man Alive Jason Andrews has asked her firm to let him spend time with a lawyer as research for an upcoming film, and Taylor has to juggle a womanizing, bad-boy actor with a $30M lawsuit in the few months she is assigned to LA. She immediately takes a dislike to the playboy and pretty much manages to one-up him at every turn. Next thing you know, she's The Mystery Woman, seen only from the back in photos with the Sexiest Man Alive.
Jason is at first annoyed, then amused and then challenged by Taylor. The more time he spends with her, the more interested he becomes. However, being a Man, he manages to make more than his fair share of relationship mistakes, especially considering their relationship is pretty much strictly business in Taylor's mind. Enter the runner-up for every title Jason holds, pretty boy Scott who is out to topple Jason from his throne - and things start to really get complicated.
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