‘Act Your Age, Eve Brown’ is the third book in the Brown sister series by Talia Hibbert and tells the story of the youngest of the three Brown sisters. You don’t really need to read the books in order though. The first and the second books in the series—‘Get a Life, Chloe Brown’ and ‘Take a Hint, Dani Brown’—were fun and whimsical. I wish I could say the same about the final one but having read two romance novels by the same author already, the third one had lost its appeal. Chloe and Danika from the other two books were interesting protagonists but Eve feels like a little bit of both. It’s almost as if Hibbert ran out of ideas to develop the character and made do with a hodgepodge of her previous ones.
Even Jacob Wayne, the man Eve falls in love with, is nowhere as interestingly crafted as Redford Morgan and Zafir Ansari, Chloe’s and Danika’s love interests respectively. I lusted over Red and Zaf. I connected with their stories and struggles—abuse and mental illness—because it was written with so much empathy and understanding. Jacob is autistic but Hibbert clearly hasn’t done much research on it and he comes across as a prickly snob.
Don’t get me wrong. Hibbert is a good writer. She writes fun, engaging stories. She’s also immensely witty. I giggled my way through her previous books. Even Act Your Age, Eve Brown has some really hilarious lines and scenes. I also appreciate that her heroines aren’t tall and skinny who think they aren’t pretty but are in fact drop-dead gorgeous. Chloe, Dani and Eve are of all shapes and sizes and they are comfortable in their bodies.
My problem with the book was that it felt very repetitive. I’m not even going to bother talking about the plot in detail. It’s basically Eve meeting Jacob and the two not getting along at first only to realize they are crazy about each other. But they both fear the other doesn’t feel the same way and drama ensues as they tiptoe around each other’s feelings (eyeroll). It was novel and refreshing in Get a Life, Chloe Brown. But Hibbert has gone on too long with the ‘a boy and a girl who don’t like each other in the beginning fall madly in love’ trope and by the third book it’s all a bit too much.
Also, the romantic (read: sex) scenes are so descriptive and go on for a dozen pages at a time. Not to sound like a prude but I skimmed through those pages, tapping furiously on my Kindle because I wanted it to be over. Don’t read Act Your Age, Eve Brown if you have read the previous two books. And if you haven’t, this definitely isn’t where you want to start.
2 stars
Fiction
Act Your Age, Eve Brown
Talia Hibbert
Published: 2021
Publisher: Avon
Pages: 400, Paperback
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/51824384-act-your-age-eve-brown
