Georgia Kostopoulou
I have been seeing The Brown Sisters books around #bookstagram and Goodreads and I was curious to see how they feel. So when I got my hands on the audiobook of “Take a Hint, Dani Brown” I said why not. It is rather clear that the books can be read as standalones so it didn’t matter that I hadn’t read the first in the series, “Get A Life, Cloe Brown”. Therefore I delved right into it.
Danika Brown, is working towards a PhD while she is teaching in the University. She has very clear goals in her mind. Professional career and academic recognition come first. The occasional sex comes somewhere lower, but is considered as needed in order to relieve her from all the tension and pressure she may feel. Romance however is not in her plans. Not since she went through a heartbreak. And she doesn’t really want to go through something like that. Sex without emotions is what she ask Universe for, the perfect sex buddy to take her mind away from all the stress.
One day, during a fire drill at the university, Danika get’s trapped in the elevator. When her friend and brooding security guard Zafir Ansari rescues her, she knows she has just found what she’s been looking for. Before she realizes, the both of them have become viral in a video that a student took of her rescue. Soon the PhD student and the former rugby player are #CoupleGoals and they have their own hashtag, as half the internet ships #DrRugbae. This whole viral thing turns out to be very useful for Zaf’s charity for kids and he asks Dani to play along on this publicity thing. This is a good cause and very straight forward as Dani sees it. Therefore she agrees to a fake relationship in public aiming to seduce Zaf behind the scenes and have him in her bed. Little did she know that this would turn her whole life upside down.
Dani is not the normal person. She has difficulty expressing her emotions and it’s pretty clear she is in the spectrum. However, it is handled very well by the author and also by the other main character Zaf, who really loves Dani and gives her all the space and time she needs, making her feel comfortable without making any effort. Zaf seems to realize that Dani needs special treatment in order not to get scared by his feelings and he is willing to give her everything she needs.
There were a lot of funny moments in this book. The chemistry between these two was perfect and Zaf is a person that I would really like to have as a friend. I became really fond of him. What seemed a bit out of place for me was that Dani’s family had no idea about that person that broke her heart in the past and made her feel insecure. I would expect her sisters were aware of that relationship and the reason that Dani decided not to have another relationship again.
The representation in the book was very well too! We had Dani and her mental health, which is something we don’t always see nicely portrayed and she is of color too. There was the Muslim Zaf and the lesbian friend. All aspects were treated very well by the author and the outcome was a funny at times contemporary romance. Not my favorite book of the year, but a good one.
