Trish Perry's The Guy I'm Not Dating ~ Reviewed

The Guy I’m Not Dating
By Trish Perry
Published by Harvest House
ISBN-10: 0-7369-1872-8

What’s a girl to do when she’s just decided to give up dating, and then a handsome new guy shows up? Not just handsome, but drop-dead gorgeous? And a Christian, too!

Kara Richardson finds herself in that predicament when she meets Gabe Paolino, owner of the new deli in town, in Trish Perry’s debut novel, The Guy I’m Not Dating. Like a giddy teenager, Kara fumbles over her words when she meets Gabe and catches herself unintentionally flirting. “She was still new to the whole dos and don’ts of the no-dating concept, but flirting probably wasn’t at the top of the “do” list.”

The attraction being two-way makes it even more of a challenge. Gabe asks Kara out for lunch the second time they meet. When she declines, explaining her decision not to date, he smiles and nods, then says, “Okay, then. I’ll respect your wishes, how about that? Just friends. Maybe that will make you want to go out with me someday.”

But she wants to go out with him now! Kara is torn by her interest in Gabe and her desire to stick with her decision. The rest of the book is a fun, warm-hearted, humorous journey as these two are thrown together and discover even more they like about each other while exploring further what it means to not date.

I chuckled out loud before I finished the first chapter. Not only did the charming premise appeal to me, but the characters themselves were believable and delightful. I found myself captivated. I could not put it down, and all the other books in my stack sat untouched while I devoured this one. It had a sweetness to it, and it satisfied me on several levels. My one complaint is that sometimes she used ‘said’ when an action beat would have sufficed, and that made it sound a bit disjointed in spots, but for the most part her writing was smooth and I breezed through it, laughing cover to cover, and the story and characters were so well-developed, I could overlook that one ‘glitch’.

Reviewed by Reni Bumpas