Review: The Learning Hours by Sara Ney

The Learning Hours
(How to Date a Douchebag #3)
by Sara Ney
Publisher: Slef-published
Publication date: Sept. 26, 2017
Genre: Romance
Rating:

He’s not a douchebag; but that doesn’t stop his friends from turning him into one.

MY FRIENDS WANT ME TO GET LAID.

So much so that they plastered my ugly mug all over campus, in bold printed letters:

Are you the lucky lady who’s going to break our roommate’s cherry?
Him: socially awkward man with average-sized penis looking for willing sexual partner. You: must have a pulse. He will reciprakate with oral. Text him at: 555-254-5551

The morons can’t even spell. And the texts I’ve been receiving are what wet dreams are made of. But I’m not like these douchebags, no matter how hard they try to turn me into one.

THIS ISN’T THE KIND OF ATTENTION I WANT.

One text stands out from hundreds. One number I can’t bring myself to block. She seems different. Hotter, even in black and white.

However, after seeing her in person, I know she’s not the girl for me. But my friends won’t let up–they just don’t get it. Douchebags or not, there’s one thing they’ll never understand: GIRLS DON’T WANT ME.

Especially her.

When I first started reading this book, I immediately disliked the heroine. She’s conceited and has a skewed view on life. She knows she’s pretty and is quick to look down on others that she feels is far beneath her. So, when she first spots Rhett, she immediately dismisses him because he’s not Calvin Klein model gorgeous. Even when she comes across the flier that his teammates put around campus suggesting he’s a virgin and in need of a good time, she thinks it would be funny to message him. Let’s just say that Laurel had a long way to go.

Poor Rhett was just being put through the wringer throughout the entire story. The poor kid just couldn’t catch a break. He’s hazed day after day by his teammates. He has zero self-esteem or confidence, and when I say zero I mean zero. When Laurel changes her tune and actually starts to view him in a new light, he immediately thinks she’s playing around or is just talking gibberish. He catches the hints and clues that she throws at him, but he shrugs them off as if it’s his imagination running wild because nobody, especially someone as beautiful as Laurel would be hitting on him. In all honesty, it was hard to watch.

Thankfully, Laurel started to win me over. She wasn’t perfect, but even when she hadn’t admitted it to herself, you could tell that she cared about Rhett. Once she stopped being a twat and actually started to behave like a decent human being, she became easier to like. Plus, her persistence to stick by Rhett, even when he wasn’t getting any of her hints that she was into him, started to wear on him over time. Little by little you would see Rhett get a bit of confidence. He would talk a bit more freely with her or admit things to her. He was just so innocent and sweet that you couldn’t help but root for me, even if he was being a bit bullheaded and slow on the uptake.

The Learning Hours has been on my radar for a couple of years now. I just loved the sound of it and the fact that Rhett didn’t sound like a douchebag. I’m glad I took a chance on this and bought a copy, because it lived up to my expectations. Maybe not in the way I thought it would, but I still enjoyed seeing Rhett get a HEA. The characters were flawed, and I had some issues with the heroine, but their slow progression throughout the pages were what made the story great. I’ll be honest though, not sure if I would be able to read a book about some of his teammate who harassed him. The things they did to him were just pure evil and I have no desire to read their stories.