TBR Challenge August 2023 – Tropetastic!

Not That Complicated by Isabel Murray

Thankfully, the prompts for the TBR Challenge are generally open to interpretation. Some months a book will attach itself to the prompt immediately in my mind, and other months, I waffle helplessly between titles, trying to work out which one is the best fit. This month was one of those and I ended up picking something totally at random – every romance makes use of at least one trope, right?

Isabel Murray’s Not That Complicated turned out to be that rare thing – a book billed as a rom com that is actually funny! It’s not a ridiculous farce that is full of silly people doing really nonsensical things, and nor is it full of that trying-too-hard-to-be-funny banter that leaves me stone-faced. It’s genuinely funny and slightly ridiculous, featuring a protagonist with an engaging narrative voice and character-work that keeps things grounded despite the occasional daftness of the plot.

Thirty-two-year-old Ray Underwood is a successful, self-employed graphic designer who works from his home in the small Cotswold village of Chipping Fairford. He’s having lunch with a client at his local pub and is at the bar getting drinks, when a gorgeous younger man comes to stand next to him, and smiles like Ray should know him. It takes Ray a few seconds to realise he does know him – and he wishes he didn’t. The last time Ray saw Adam Blake was around a year earlier when Adam was wet, naked and in his shower. Being sucked off by Ray’s live-in boyfriend, Fraser. Well, to be strictly accurate, the actual last time Ray saw Adam was the following day when Adam turned up on his doorstep to apologise and explain that he’d thought Fraser was single and that he and Ray were merely housemates – and Ray had shut the door in his face.

When an accident with his favourite comfort food later that day means Ray has to have his bedroom recarpeted, (not a good idea to put a plate of half-eaten curry on the floor when you fall asleep and then get out of bed and accidentally stomp around in it on a pale beige carpet!) he gets more than he bargained for when the fitters pull up a couple of loose floorboards prior to fixing them, and find a plastic tub containing a dead body underneath.

After Detective Nash has taken Ray’s statement, he tells him he needs to stay somewhere else that night while the forensics team does their stuff. Exhausted, Ray opts to go to stay at a local hotel – Fraser got all the friends in their ‘divorce’ and his parents aren’t close by – so he grabs a few things and drives to the local Premier Lodge. Where he walks into the lobby to see Adam behind the reception desk. Because there’s always a way things can go from bad to worse.

[Side note: Despite the presence of a dead body (or two ;)) Not That Complicated isn’t a mystery and Ray isn’t an amateur sleuth; it’s quickly established that the remains are old and finding out why they’re under Ray’s floor could take years, if it happens at all – this acts principally as the inciting incident that puts Ray into Adam’s orbit.]

Ray’s is the single PoV in this story and I really liked being in his head. His reactions to the situation are very relateable; dry and funny with a very resigned FML quality while walking a fine line just this side of hysterical. I liked him straight away – his wry, self-deprecating voice is right up my alley, and I laughed out loud several times. Adam is bright, intelligent and charming, he’s more than up to Ray’s weight in the snarking department and can see right through his flustered denials to what Ray really needs. He likes taking care of Ray and taking charge in the bedroom – Ray is surprised to find just how much that works for him! – and he’s quietly persistent but not in an obnoxious way; he’s always there for Ray, ready to offer support and comfort (and sexy distraction!), and knows just how to talk him off the ledge. That his interest in Ray is sincere is visible from space, but Ray is a bit too blinkered and preoccupied with his own shortcomings to realise it, and it takes him quite a while (perhaps a bit too long) to wake up to the fact that his own insecurities have lead him to hurt Adam without realising it.

My one real criticism of the book is that the romance suffers by not giving us an outside perspective on Ray, who is obviously secure professionally – he’s making a decent living so must be good at what he does – but is a mess of insecurities otherwise. Ray sees Adam as being totally out of his league because in his head, Ray is a sad sap who didn’t realise his boyfriend was a cheater, he doesn’t have many friends, he’s totally average-looking and generally hopeless, all of which makes it hard for the reader to understand what Adam – younger, gorgeous, confident, nurturing and seriously hot – sees in him. Having a snarky bestie or other sidekick could perhaps have helped the reader to understand how unreliable Ray’s self-perception is and gone some way to showing why Adam is so taken with him.

Despite that, however, I did enjoy Not That Complicated – it’s refreshing and genuinely funny, and I really loved Ray’s narrative voice. I wavered between a B and a B-minus for a final grade, but have gone with the B simply because I had a lot of fun reading it and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for something to make you smile. Oh, and I did fulful the prompt in the end – enemies-to-lovers, age-gap and grumpy/sunshine!

Grade: B                  Sensuality: Warm

~ Caz Owens

Buy it at Amazon