Taming Hollywood’s Baddest Boy, by Max Monroe is a 348-page contemporary romance novel and is the first book out of a 3-part series called “Hollywood”. Okay, so it says it’s the first book, but honestly, if you read this book it feels more like it’s the second book as scenes in this book elude to past things in the second book, but whatever. It is written from a first-person POV, two-sided.

And yet, another new author for me. I know…I’m on a roll. It’s been awhile, since I’ve posted and trust me, it isn’t because I’m reading, but writing book reviews does take a bit of time. I need to catch up, I’ve read 6 or 7 books since I’ve last posted. Between returning to work after my 4 month long maternity leave, writing and editing my own book, and you know, living general life it’s been hard for me to be motivated to sit down and write my book reviews.

Anyhow, let’s get on with it, shall we? I like the RomComs a lot, especially ones that are actually laugh out loud funny and this one delivers. Being in the mind of these characters is an absolute riot. I am also interested in the authors (that’s right, plural), apparently, Max Monroe is the name of two authors who decided to write romance together. It really works. I imagine the sense of humor between the two women is similar enough, but they compliment each other well when they swap POVs so it is clear that character voices are not similar at all.

The heat level of this book is five. It’s explicit, is it super dirty like Penny Wylder or Tessa Bailey? No, but it’s not clean.

Spoilers Ahead ***

Billie is a Production Assistant (“PA”) for a well known movie producer. Her goal in life is to produce her own movies. Backstory for this character, her parents passed away when she was 8 or 9 (it contradicts in this story with the third book in the series) and was raised by her grandmother and older sister (who’s happy ending story is covered in book 3). Billie has an insane habit…when she gets nervous, she decides to be a bit more generous with the truth. The movie she’s working on is currently in the middle of casting the lead male and she implied she knows Luca Weaver, Hollywood’s bad boy, who hasn’t been for eight years. So her journey starts with her seeking Luca out and basically shoving the script down his throat.

Luca is a child movie star who got in a lot of trouble as he got older in Hollywood, drugs? Promiscuity? Partying? Yup. He’s done it all, well maybe not all, but it’s implied he was quite naughty. He tries to get rid of Billie by scaring her away with a very non city lifestyle as he lives in the middle of nowhere in Alaska. Billie’s persistent though and worms her way into his heart and bed.

Overall, the characters were likeable, and the meetcute was…well, it was fun. Billie showing up on his doorstep while Luca is half-naked? Yeah, that shouldn’t be awkward at all.

Generally, here are my thoughts:

1. The POVs from the characters are hilarious. I will say, the conflict between the two characters was more misunderstanding than anything extreme, but maybe that is just how RomCom rolls?
2. I liked their style of writing, it was easy to read and the flow for the most part felt natural, and yes, I actually laughed out loud
3. This is a situation where the love grew over time, so I appreciate that, so there’s a lot of time warping.
4. In the beginning of the book, Luca and Billie go on a 38 mile hike to deliver medication to someone that Luca takes care of…that’s a bit unrealistic considering hiking in Alaska in spring has lots of mosquitoes and is freezing as all get out (at times), especially at night, but I didn’t let that bother me as I found the interaction between the two characters funny enough to ignore that part.

In summary, I give this a 4 out of 5. I plan to read the other two books.