By Kyle Smith
William Morrow
Hardcover and Paperback Editions

Tom Farrell is your typical guy -- he goes to great length to describe himself as average. He's in love with Julia, a live life to the fullest kind of gal who loves to do things out of the ordinary. She treats him (mostly) like more of a friend than a sometime lover.

Love Monkey Excerpt My Day. 1:00. To the Met. Check out Vermeer exhibit. Strike up conversation with cute twenty-five-year-old Dutch graduate student I meet standing in front of "Woman Wearing Doily Around Her Neck"; obtain her numerals, agree to meet for drinks at the Carlyle "early next week." 4:00. Back home. Work on my novel till dinner. One interruption: call from superagent. 8:30. Quiet dinner with a few friends at Le Bernadin. No really, fellas, it's on me. They all know about my huge advance. We laugh about it. 11:45. Village Vanguard to hear some jazz. Exchange dirty jokes with compadres, trade saucy banter with cocktail waitress who, as I slip out the door, slips me her digits. ©2004 Kyle Smith Published with permission from William Morrow

Meanwhile he’s dating other women, including Bran, a hard-hitting journalist who's been his friend for ages and Liesl, a cool German beauty who is far more serious and practical.

He makes his living at a tabloid, where he edits the entertainment section and creates salacious as possible headlines and he freely admits he’s a 13 year old trapped in a man’s body. He spends his time trying to feel his way around his non-relationship with Julia and juggling a decent social life, but then a major event happens and everything does, indeed, change, giving all the characters concerned a new perspective on life.

For a chick, this book is sometimes not the easiest of reads, because we focus so much on his life, much the same way a chick lit book concentrates on the sexual, mental and daily life details of being a girl. Listening to his views on dating and life definitely gives you a different perspective into the male mind, but one that, when everything seems extremely uncomforting, he thinks/does/says something to give you hope that there are places where the average male and female can connect.

It’s also often extremely funny. Tom’s narrative is charming...sometimes disarming, sometimes you want to whack him upside the head, sometimes you want to offer him a shoulder to cry on. It’s a portrait of the dating game through a man’s eyes and it's really enjoyable.

Bookworm's Briefing
Love Monkey is chick lit for guys, but for girls it’s a worthy read because it finishes out the equation, giving you a good male voice to broaden your perspective and balance things out. It’s also humorous with some moments of real emotional brilliance.