Change of Plans - Dylan Newton - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Dylan Newton

SERIES: Matthews Brothers, #3

GENRE: Contemporary Romance-Drama.

RATING: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A romcom where I enjoyed a lot of the ‘rom’ and disliked a lot of the supposed ‘com’. USP: a male protagonist with a prosthetic leg and PTSD, thanks to his days as a marine. Worth a read especially for this factor.

Story Synopsis:

After her brother and sister-in-law lose their lives in an accident, Bryce Weatherford is given guardianship of her three nieces: June (11), Cecily (8), and Addie (5). As a chef, the only mess Bryce knows how to handle is the one in her kitchen. But to fulfil her brother’s last wish, she knows she will do whatever it takes to sort out teenage June’s moody grumpiness, Cecily’s determination to not have a bath, and Addie’s refusal to take off her fairy wings. Handling all this along with her job at PattyCakes, she has no time for anything else, least of all romance.

Enter Ryker Matthews, a disabled ex-marine, who is focussed on his car restoration business while keeping himself locked away from displaying any kind of emotion so as to not worry his family. But he knows that his PTSD is getting worse.

When Bryce and Ryker bump into each other at the supermarket… Ah well, you can guess the rest.

The story comes to us through the limited third-person perspectives of Bryce and Ryker.

This is the final book of the ‘Matthews Brothers’ series. I haven’t read the first two books, but each book contains one brother’s love story. As such, the books can be read as standalone, except that you will get a few spoilers in the later books about the earlier couples.

Bookish Yays:

❤ I liked the two main characters. Their inner strength and courage is visible almost throughout the book. More than their almost-instant sparks, I enjoyed their banter, especially the way they exchanged dirty jokes when the kids weren’t around. They were cute as a pair!

❤ Rarely do romcoms give the male character a voice, so I loved to see the narration balanced between Bryce and Ryker. Seeing the male perspective in romance is a nice experience, especially when the MC is also struggling with his issues.

❤ I am the kind who doesn’t go awww at romantic scenes but at cute kids. And this book gave me three kiddos to gush over. Cecily, Addie, and baby Lisi were adorable! (Except during certain unhygienic accidents.)

❤ Through Ryker’s perspective, the story covers the important issue of how PTSD can trouble marines, to the extent that it can impair even daily functioning. I loved how genuine this portrayal felt. The author’s note reveals the extent of her research in order to depict this correctly. Kudos!

❤ One specialty of this romance novel is its choice of having an amputee as the MMC. (How I wish the cover had highlighted the prosthetic leg better!) Ryker’s disability gives us a glimpse of his struggles with his missing leg, whether through phantom pains or because of HO (heterotopic ossification). There are also details about his prosthetic, and about his getting a service dog through PAWS. Rarely does a portrayal of a disabled person feel so authentic in this light-hearted genre.

❤ On that note, the story has a wonderfully sweet service dog, though in a limited role. Every such dog deserves a separate capitalised YAY!

❤ The ending is as expected, happy without going much over the top. It redeemed my rating to a certain extent.

Bookish “Nay-For-Me-Possible-Yay-For-Others”:

📌 I’m not a fan of steamy romances. I prefer reading about a connection of the mind than of the body. The steam level in this book, though not a 5 on the spice meter, was still too much for me. I also don’t like books where the characters view each other mainly through the physical lens. A couple of mentions of anatomical attraction is probably fine, but to keep referring to it feels too shallow.

(On the anatomical note, do large-chested women seriously refer to or ponder about their bra size every time they are donning a bra? I didn’t get Bryce’s repeated reference to her DD cups. Yes, she has large breasts. We get it. Move on!

PS: I had honestly assumed that the author is a male, considering the extensive focus on breasts. Whoops!)

Bookish Nays: 

💔 I disliked the portrayal of the eldest child. June is supposed to be eleven, so I get why she was sketched with some teenage (tweenage?) angst. But her character development isn’t consistent, and her behaviour seems to swing abruptly between positive to negative, sometimes within the same scene. I’d have preferred a more realistic depiction.

💔 I’m equally dissatisfied with the sketching of the grandparents. They were so ridiculously stereotypical in their ‘Grandparents have the priority’ attitude. I get that the book needed some conflict, but doing it through hackneyed characters in roles that no longer suit this millennium is passé.

💔 Honestly, the author is really good at crafting emotional scenes, humorous interactions, and heartfelt romance. I have no idea why she felt the need to add OTT fiasco situations in the story. There’s hardly any scene with the kids where there is no disaster. The mid-book puke scene was the most ridiculous. (And that’s not the only puke scene in the story!) Who the heck wants to read an extended vomit scene in between a romance? Not I, for sure.

💔 The story goes way overboard with the miscommunication trope. And it’s not just miscommunication on the lines of characters not revealing the complete truth. But every time a character is on the verge of confessing something serious, there’s an interruption, and the other character totally forgets that they are having a meaningful conversation and moves onto some other topic. It was so repetitive!

All in all, this is a story that has a lot to offer. With loveable characters, great themes, and a great meet-cute-turns-steamy, it would have been the perfect contemporary romance book. Unfortunately, it tries too hard to be funny with the OTT situations, which is really sad as the story had enough substance and didn’t need to resort to cheap attention-grabbing tactics.

Of course, this could just be my personal bugbear. I’m not a regular reader of this genre, so I have no idea what’s *in*. Maybe cheesy or cringey scenes add to the OMG effect of such books for other readers. If you are one of those, I am strongly recommending this read to you.

To those who are more like me in your romance-reading preferences: if you can grit your teeth and make it through the steamy scenes and the puke overload, you might like this one for its disability and PTSD rep, and for the DOG and the KIDDOS! So yeah, still recommended to you, but be prepared to roll your eyes many times.

My thanks to Forever, Grand Central Publishing, and NetGalley for the DRC of “Change of Plans”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.