Backlist Review: Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert
Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash
Synopsis:
Danika Brown knows what she wants: professional success, academic renown, and an occasional roll in the hay to relieve all that career-driven tension. But romance? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. Romantic partners, whatever their gender, are a distraction at best, and a drain at worst. So Dani asks the universe for the perfect friend with benefits—someone who knows the score and knows their way around the bedroom.
When big, brooding security guard Zafir Ansari rescues Dani from a workplace fire drill gone wrong, it’s an obvious sign: Ph.D. student Dani and former rugby player Zaf are destined to sleep together. But before she can explain that fact to him, a video of the heroic rescue goes viral. Suddenly, half the internet is shipping #DrRugbae—and Zaf is begging Dani to play along. Turns out his sports charity for kids could really use the publicity. Lying to help children? Who would refuse?
Dani’s plan is simple: fake a relationship in public, seduce Zaf behind the scenes. The trouble is, grumpy Zaf is secretly a romantic—he’s determined to corrupt Dani’s stone-cold realism. Before long, he’s tackling her fears into the dirt. But the former sports star has issues of his own, and the walls around his heart are as thick as his…um, thighs.
Suddenly, the easy lay Dani dreamed of is more complex than her thesis. Has her wish backfired? Is her focus being tested?
Or is the universe waiting for her to take a hint?
I thought I couldn’t love Talia Hibbert more. I was wrong.
“Anything you want to do, you can. Hurdles were made to be jumped. Glass ceilings were made to be smashed. But all that can be exhausting, so make sure you care for yourself too. There's great value in the things that bring you joy.”
I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by their cover, but just look at this one! It’s so forking adorable, and yellow, and perfect. I just love it. Anyway. This book is technically the sequel to Get a Life, Chloe Brown, focusing on Chloe’s younger sister, Danika. I say technically, because it can definitely be read as a stand-alone book. But really, it’s the perfect follow-up, so I highly recommend reading them in order.
I loved the first book, and saw a lot of myself in Chloe, but Dani is the person I want to be best friends with. She’s just so damn cool. She’s sassy, ambitious, and whip-smart. She is unapologetically herself. I love the bisexual representation, since sadly, that’s something we don’t see enough in modern romance novels.
Speaking of representation, Hibbert is so good at writing diverse characters, not only in terms of ethnicity and sexuality; she also tackles the topic of mental health. I so appreciate the time she’s taken to research these issues and show them at face value. Just like how she shows the very real way Chloe deals with her chronic pain, she doesn’t romanticize anything.
And I love the fact that Zaf is the one who has anxiety. Because of course, men also struggle with mental illness, especially after a traumatic event. Seeing Zaf deal with his anxiety in such a constructive and healthy way, was so refreshing. This is what I like best about reading Talia Hibbert. She crafts such realistic, sexy, vulnerable male characters.
“I'm leaking masculine pain from my eyeballs.”
The only thing I had a problem with was the way social media worked in the book. Dani and Zaf decide to pretend to be a couple when they go viral. As a result, they go on fake lunch dates around the university where they both work so that they can get noticed—therefore Tweeted about. That part just didn’t seem very realistic to me.
It just seems to me that people wouldn’t really care that much if that happened in real life.
Of course, I am famously an old woman when it comes to social media, so it could be I’m just out of touch with, well, everything. But I was more than willing to suspend my disbelief to keep reading.
Because the relationship that grows between Dani and Zaf is the real highlight of the novel. They come from two completely different socio-economic backgrounds, they have completely different passions in life, but they work so well together as a couple because they have tremendous respect and admiration for each other.
What you get out of being loved, it’s supposed to be worth the compromise. When it’s good, it makes you want to compromise.”
Dani is decidedly not an outdoorsy person, but she is so supportive of his charity, Tackle It, which encourages teenage boys to talk about their feelings (down with toxic masculinity!). And even if Zaf doesn’t truly understand Dani’s area of academic study—race and gender in the West—he actively tries to learn more about it because it’s Dani’s passion. They both work hard to take care of the other. As a result, this is one of the healthiest relationships I’ve ever read about in a romance novel.
Not to mention, their sexual chemistry is through the roof, which makes for a very steamy read.
TW: death of a parent/siblings, anxiety, panic attacks.
This book is an open-door romance, meaning the sex scenes are explicit.