Review - Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys by Kate Brian

Published 5 September 2006
Published by Sumon Pulse

Summary from Goodreads - Boys. 7 of them, to be exact. Megan is used to moving from place to place -- it's typical for an army brat. But she drew the line at South Korea. She insists on staying in the States to finish her last two years of high school. So her parents made arrangements for Megan to live with their friends, the McGowans...and the McGowans' 7 sons.

Turns out, living with 7 boys might as well be a foreign country! The boys are messy. They are cliquey (who knew?). And worst of all, two of the oldest boys are H-O-T. (A problem considering they are supposed to be Megan's "brothers.") Megan is definitely in enemy territory. She needs to win over the boys' hearts without totally crushing her own.

And when Megan starts falling for one of them, sibling rivalry takes on a whole new meaning....What is a girl to do?

I think the idea of living with seven boys sounds amazing in theory but in practice, I highly suspect it would be horrific.  I can't imagine what my teenage years would have been like living with seven boys, all of whom were not relations.  I think early showers and a whole new beauty regime would've took over my whole existence.  Being an only child until I was in my late teens, I can relate to our fabulous protagonist Megan exceptionally well, the only difference is I wasn't shipped off to live with seven boys.

This is the first Kate Brian book I have read, though I know her Private series does exceptionally well here in the UK.  I loved how she wrote this novel, the characters were so well formed and each and everyone of the McGowan boys had a different personalitity, and I found it really easy to differentiate their voices throughout the novel.  This was a brilliant job, because with so many secondary characters, I did think that some would be easily forgotten or just fade into the background, but this wasn't the case.

Megan, our leading lady, was a welcome change to the usual protagonists I have been seeing a lot of lately in more recent YA books.  She is tough and honest and is not afraid to say what she thinks, though it does take a lot of drama from the boys and her new classmates for her to realise what a strong person she is.  The freeze outs, the pranks and the obnoxious nicknames made me laugh out loud.  I really enjoyed that soccer was woven into the story, as it gave Megan more depth as a character and helped along some of the minor storylines.

I love it when you find an author whose characters are vivacious, come to life, and resonate with you as a reader.  This wasn't a book with a lot of depth and hidden meanings, it was a quick fun read that teenage girls and adults will eat right up.  Brilliant.