Book Review | A Girl's Guide to the Birds and the Bees

A Girl’s Guide to the Birds and the Bees

by Sophie Hart

Release Date: September 19, 2014

Kindle Edition: 292

Kindle Price: $2.99 What happens in the bedroom doesn’t have to stay in the bedroom.

A refreshingly open and uplifting romantic comedy about friendship, love and sex. Sometimes you need to step out of your comfort zone in order to give a relationship a good dose of TLC…

Sex therapist Annie Hall helps couples put the fizz back into their relationships. It’s a shame her own love life is non-existent. When Jamie who works next door catches her eye, she can’t ignore the spark of chemistry.

Most men would jump at the chance to skive off work for an afternoon quickie with their gorgeous wife, but Nick knows Julie is after only one thing- a baby. Sex shouldn’t be a chore. Can Annie help Julia see that?

Newly engaged Zoe and Simon can’t keep their hands off each other. They’ve decided to take a vow of celibacy until their wedding night. Will Annie help them stick to it?

Ray and Linda have been married for over thirty years but she’s more interested in the family business than getting intimate with him. Can Annie convince Linda to rediscover her passion for Ray after all this time?

While Annie begins to work her magic with the three couples, she soon discovers that she’ll need to take some of her own advice if she’s going to let a new man into her life.

If you’re a fan of Tracy Bloom’s No one Ever Has Sex on a Tuesday and Lindsey Kelk, put your feet up, turn off your phone, and sink into Sophie’s novel.

What exactly does a sex therapist do? ‘The Beginner’s Guide to the Birds & the Bees’ is a compelling, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy about a sex therapist that needs to learn to take her own relationship advice.

Annie Hall has a rewarding professional career but needs some help when it comes to her personal life. Having been single most of her adult life, Annie is fiercely independent and generally content with the way her life is; she lives for her work and basically has a non-existent social life. “She was extremely proud of everything she’d achieved in her career, but couldn’t help but feel that her life was a little lonely sometimes.”

I literally laughed out loud throughout the novel and found it comical to observe Annie’s interactions with her clients, especially because she is often met with a high degree of confusion and misunderstanding in regards to what a sex therapist actually does. It wasn’t uncommon for Annie to have clients be hesitant to attend a session because their biggest misconception was that they would be asked to strip down naked or have sex while she observed and told them what they were doing wrong.

“I’m basically a counsellor, and when couples are having problems in their relationship – specifically sexual problems – they come and talk to me and I help them work through it.” Annie helps couples mend their relationship both physically and emotionally and there isn’t just one textbook reason to see a sex therapist. Often times when a couple comes to her, one or both of the individuals involved is missing not just the sex, but the intimacy and closeness of being in a relationship. No two cases are the same and Annie finds happiness and success in helping her clients work through their issues and ultimately repair their relationship.

“People supposed that because Annie spent her days giving relationship advice and talking freely about sex, she must be some sort of man-eating tigress in her personal life.” The troubling effect of Annie’s career choice is that almost everyone in her life assumes that she must be wild in the bedroom and is an expert on having phenomenal sex. In reality, Annie hasn’t had a boyfriend in ages and tends to fall head-over-heels for the wrong men. “I think my love of romantic movies made me believe that everyone has their own happy ending out there.”Annie is successful in helping her clients work through their problems but she can’t manage to find a true great love of her own.

Annie is great at giving other couples’ advice, but she has a hard time following her own words of relationship wisdom. “She was always advising her clients that communication was key, but, as ever, Annie seemed unable to take her own advice.” Will she be able to follow her own advice and learn to communicate in her relationships or will she be doomed to live her life as a single gal, wishing away her life as a hopeless romantic?

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for providing me with a review copy in exchange for an honest review!