Animal Instincts by Gena Showalter

Published: March 20, 2007

Once again I am going to be talking about one of Gena Showalter’s earlier works. This is another romantic comedy and honestly I was laughing quite a bit but this was another book with my biggest pet-peeves in books. You guessed it. It only had one person’s point of view. I’m sure most people aren’t as picky as I am when it comes to this but I honestly think the story is missing a big part when you don’t have the point of view of the male. Especially when you consider in this book the whole point of it was to get Naomi to talk to Royce and for him to convince her that they would be perfect together. Well it misses something when I can’t know how frustrated he is every time that Naomi turns him down.

Naomi is a party planner and Royce Powell has been trying to get a hold of her for months. When his mother calls her to plan her “surprise” birthday party she has to work with Royce in planning it. He is impossible to work with in her opinion. He won’t let her have other clients so she is totally bored when she isn’t working on Mrs. Powell’s party. She is working on finding her inner Tigress because she has lived her whole life as a doormat. However, her inner Tigress becomes a kitten anytime that Royce is around. That’s not what she wants. She doesn’t want a relationship ever again after her husband of six years cheated on her multiple times. And like an idiot she took him back the first and the second time. The third time she finally got a divorce and he took everything. Add that on top of her biological father being an abusive cheater she has sworn off men. Royce is making it really hard to swear off all men. He says the sweetest things and he is trying to convince her that he has been in love with her since he saw her six months ago. Can she really believe that? Plain, old her? Sure she has hooker lips but what else can she offer a millionaire playboy?

Each chapter in the novel started out with what a Tigress would do. And sometimes it was good advice and others not so much. But they were glimpses into what Naomi was trying to accomplish in reading the self-help book. What really made me laugh though was the tirades she had whenever her ex-husband Richard the Bastard was mentioned or whenever she thought about Royce’s secretary. Whom she called Elvira. Each one just got better and better in my opinion. They were fabulous and really made the book for me. Naomi was a spitfire for the most part and even though it was all from her point of view she made it interesting. It (of course) had a happily ever after even though it was a journey to get there. I suggest reading the book for a good laugh and, of course, to read all of Gena Showalter’s books.

—“My ex–may he soon discover tiny worms have invaded his body and are slowly eating him alive–once told me God made men so perfect because He’d wanted to make up for the inadequacies of women.” -Naomi, pg. 102—