The Numbers Man Reviewed By Tiffany Schlarman of Bookpleasures.com
- By Tiffany Schlarman
- Published December 2, 2010
- Romance
Tiffany Schlarman
Reviewer Tiffany Schlarman: Tiffany is an avid reader with a passion and love for books. Tiffany enjoys sharing her passion of reading with her children and her friends. She is a stay-at-home mom by day and works in management for a call center of a textbook company that provides for high schools, colleges and universities around the globe.
Author:
Pat Muir
ISBN: 0-9676060-1-2
Publisher: PM Book
Click Here To Purchase The Numbers Man
Pat, a
sixty-three year old former geophysicist, has divorced and is looking
for romance. He believes the key to finding this romance is
thru the internet and his choice of dating website.
Unfortunately Pat is not good with names, possibly a former career
handicap, and instead assigns each woman a number. Pat meets
Beth whom he starts to date regularly until she leaves town for a
couple months. Soon he meets Donna who also seems a great match
for him. While juggling the two ladies Pat is warding off his
friend and employees young wife Ruby, who hits on him consistently.
If that is not enough his life becomes more complicated as he
promotes his book and meets a hot headed chef with a vengeance.
His book promoter Sonia, always has good advice but to Pat it’s not
always clear which path he should take.
The Numbers Man is a
comedic romance about an old man trying to find love and his endless
women. Pat knows what he wants but will he find what he is
looking for? The novel made me laugh at times. It started
and ended at a steady pace but lost my attention in the middle.
The novel is fiction but inspired by events that took place in the
author’s life. While the reader can discern which parts are
most likely real (the author’s name, previous book, publishing
company, experiences with promoting, reviews sales and self
publishing) the rest is fictional in nature but feels as though it
could be true. I would have preferred the author did not use
his real name in the book as the main character, along with details
that are not fictions such as his prior book and publishing company.
Aspects like these left the book feeling like a fictional memoir
which was confusing. I found myself focused on wondering what
was true versus what was fiction instead of on the story itself.
I would have preferred to read a completely fictional account with
hidden truth. The author could have easily done this by
re-naming the main character and not using other notable facts about
himself.
Overall the book was average but fun to read.
Rarely do you read a romance where the male is looking for love.
This was a nice change of pace. The story was humorous,
insightful and interesting for the most part. I would have
preferred to read less about Pat’s radio promotions as they started
to feel redundant. Key radio promos were necessary but more
than that was too much. The novel is written in a diary entry
like manner with dates to mark each entry. I enjoyed this
format. It helped keep the time frame readily available.
I noticed with my copy that the format of printing felt right aligned
making the left hand pages hard to read when the words started going
into the binding. I had to keep the book open wide which was
uncomfortable at point. It would have been better to have
printed those pages in left aligned formatting to avoid the spine of
the book. I think readers in the target age group
of forty and up would most enjoy this novel though any adult reader
can easily do the same. If you are intrigued I suggest giving
it a try. The novel is priced at $7.99 making it affordable and
worthwhile.