A review by shelbyh94
Borrowing My Bestie's Brothers by Sam Hall

emotional lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

 

Rating: 3/5 ⭐⭐⭐ (🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ 4/5 spice)

Started: 05-14-2025

Finished: 05-19-2025

Synopsis: Jamie (FMC) has an insanely toxic mother who severely lacks an understanding of boundaries and how to respect them. Her mother wants Jamie to bring one of her three (imaginary) fake boyfriends as her date to her brother Frankie’s engagement party. Jamie’s best friend Millie offers up her three brothers as Jamie’s fake boyfriends for the week, but Millie knows that none of her brother’s want this to be fake. 

Brock is Jamie’s boss at the garage that she works at and has had a thing for Jamie for years.  Hunter and Hayden are twins (this is CONSTANTLY mentioned and brought up, even by the twins themselves because they call the other “my twin” all the time in their thoughts). They are carpenters by trade and models on the side (this is also brought up quite a bit). All three brothers have their work cut out for them getting Jamie to bring down her walls and let them in.

I have very conflicted feelings about this book. First off, I think this was potentially a big part of me not liking this book as much as I thought I would, is that the relationship between Jamie the FMC and her mother is EXTREMELY toxic and it very much reminded me of how my mother used to be. Now my mother went through therapy and received help and we have over time begun to rebuild a relationship, but to hear the way Marjorie, Jamie’s  mom, would talk to and about her was kind of traumatic for me. My second big problem is that the writing is super cringey sometimes. I get it, it’s a romance book and sometimes the writing is cringey but I just could not handle it sometimes. 

“That I loved her. I felt that in a rush, my eyes locking with hers as it all came gushing out. The c*m erupting from my b*alls was just a physical manifestation of the way I felt about her.”

“Her cry was like the seagulls in the evening, her sighs like the sea. She was as wild as the sea and as all consuming.”

But despite the issues that I had with this book I was always thinking about it and wanted to go back to reading it, but could only read it for short periods of time before either the cringe or the toxic relationship got to be too much and I had to stop for a bit. Would I recommend this book to other people? Yes, but would definitely preface with the above mentioned issues. 

K!nks/tropes:

• Brothers best friend 
• Fake dating
• Poly relationship