The Drought by Steven Scaffardi book review (taken from My Book File)

This book review was originally posted on My Book File on March 14, 2016. 

4/5 Stars 
Dan Hilles is just a normal guy with a job, a small group of friends and a long-term girlfriend, but not for long. Things start to change for Dan when he breaks-up with his girlfriend Stacey and he finds himself single again for the first time in three years. Unfortunately for him things don’t change in his favour and he enters a period of drought. With some near death experiences, more than a couple of awkward dates and some really embarrassing situations, things are getting real complicated. But Dan has a goal and he will not stop until he ends the drought.

I received a free copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.

“We sang it loud. We sang it proud. We sang it with passion. We sang it completely tone deaf. But it didn’t matter. It was the perfect end to the evening.”

Dan has been with Stacey for three years now but she has changed a lot since he met her at university. It all goes wrong at new years even when they get into another fight and Dan decides to spend the night with his friends instead of with her. After the nearly fifty messages she left him that night alone, he decides to put an end to it. But things don’t really go as planned and instead of breaking up kind of ‘peacefully’ he gets kicked out of the house by Stacey best friend Sophie who wants to kill him with a baseball bat. From that point on things change, but not for the better. Time and again Dan gets himself into the must stupid and surreal situations, even his friends are unable to help him break the drought and as it goes on Dan is getting more desperate. Rob, Ollie and Jack try to help him as best as they can but even their knowledge combined can’t save Dan from making a complete fool of himself. He even manages to get on the television twice! (not under the best circumstances but heej there is no such thing as bad publicity right?)

So yes I did read the sequel first but that doesn’t matter because this book is just as awesome, funny and amusing ^_^ Why you ask? Well here is why:

This book is everything I hoped it would be. There are the familiar yet unimaginable situations he is able to get into. He does it all on his own and I have to say that is very impressive. I’ve got more than one favourite scene is this book but I think that this one is the one I loved the most:

“‘I bumped into Simon Peterson yesterday.’ Rob said. ‘He lives on Mantilla Road.’
‘So what?’ I sneered.
‘He happened to mention that he saw you on his road on Wednesday night,’ Rob announced. ‘He was working on his car. He would have said hello, but you sprinted past him at a ferocious pace with a dog chasing you.’
‘Was it a poodle?’ Ollie questioned.
‘No it wasn’t a poodle,’ I said. ‘It was a big horrible, snarling beast.’
‘Simon said it was a sausage dog.’ Rob said and they all started laughing again.

This is a scene where Dan is having a drink with his friends and yes they’re making fun of him again. Now what happened before this is quite hilarious because it has to do with a date that would have stopped Dan’s drought. Dan got a second chance with Grace and just as they were going to take it one step further, he discovers that he doesn’t have any condoms with him. Getting dressed to get some at a store nearby, he runs out of Grace’s house but by the time he has to get back he finds out that he has no idea how to get back at all. That is when, after walking some time, he encounters a big horrible snarling beast… that turned out to be a sausage dog.

This book was so much fun to read and even though I read the second book first it didn’t affect me at all because everything that happened was just as unexpected. The amazing characters combined with the easy use of language, the everyday scenes and hilarious situations made for a great book. Again this book brings the whole dating-scenario from a totally different perspective. Not from the female point of view but from a man’s and that makes it all the more fun to read. It is that I am a woman myself but by reading this I understand that most man don’t understand women at all, sometimes even I don’t understand women (or myself for that matter) at all. Some of the language and scenes might be a little too harsh or descriptive for some people but that just made it better in my opinion.

Overall I think the book was great and it was so much fun to read. I would recommend this book to everyone who loves romance/comedy/chicklit kind of novels. I give this book four stars because me really likey.