Review: "Bad Taste in Men"

Bad Taste in Men by Lana Cooper
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Humor
Release Date: December 18, 2013
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Book Description:

Have you ever felt like even Mother Theresa has got more game than you?
If you have, you'd be in the same boat as geeky, awkward metalhead Nova Porter.

Bad Taste In Men follows Nova from her prepubescent years through young adulthood and her attempts at getting dudes to dig her.

Juggling self-esteem issues, small town outsider status, and questionable taste in guys, Nova is looking for love in all the wrong places - like the food court at the mall. Nova's circle of friends and her strange(ly) endearing family more than make up for what her love life lacks.

Along the way, Nova alternately plays the roles of hero and villain, mastermind and stooge; picking up far more valuable life lessons than numbers for her little black book.

One part chick lit for tomboys and one part Freaks and Geeks for kids who came of age in the mid-'90s, Bad Taste In Men is loaded (like a freight train) with pop cultural references and crude humor.

From getting laughed at by your crush to being stood up (twice!) by a guy with one eye, Bad Taste In Men showcases the humor and humiliation that accompanies the search for love (or at least "like") as a small-town teenage outcast, managing to wring heart-warming sweetness from angsty adolescent memories - and jokes about barf and poop.

♥ ♥ ♥

"Bad Taste in Men" by Lana Cooper can best be described as a "fictional memoir". It's a work of fiction that follows Cooper's main character, Nova, from her preteen years through adulthood and her journey to find love. Unfortunately for Nova, the journey is far from a smooth one and the reader goes along with the character and all of her mishaps and heartbreaks.

Nova is an interesting character. She lives in small town America, but is a complete metal head that's not afraid to be loud and make dirty jokes at every opportunity. These qualities make her a bit of an outcast in town as well as school, and that's one more challenge that she has to overcome on her way to finally finding a boyfriend.

Another difficulty of Nova's is that she's looking for love in all of the wrong places. More than once she tries to turn a friend relationship into something more, and ends up ruining the friendship from trying to force something that's not there. Also "Bad Taste in Men" really isn't just a title. Nova's taste is HORRIBLE. The poor girl can't help but to fall for deadbeats and guys who treat her poorly. At times as a reader I felt bad for her, and there were other times when her taste was just so wrong that it was humorous.