Review: Grin & Beard It by Penny Reid

Title: Grin & Beard It
By: Penny Reid
Series: Winston Brothers #2
My Copy: Ebook from Publisher
The BookWhisperer's Rating: 

Sienna Diaz is everyone’s favorite “fat” funny lady. The movie studio executives can’t explain it, but her films are out-grossing all the fit and trim headliners and Hollywood’s most beautiful elite. The simple truth is, everyone loves plus-sized Sienna.

But she has a problem, she can’t read maps and her sense of direction is almost as bad as her comedic timing is stellar. Therefore, when Sienna’s latest starring role takes her to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park she finds herself continually lost while trying to navigate the backroads of Green Valley, Tennessee. Much to her consternation, Sienna’s most frequent savior is a ridiculously handsome, charming, and cheeky Park Ranger by the name of Jethro Winston.

Sienna is accustomed to high levels of man-handsome, so it’s not Jethro’s chiseled features or his perfect physique that make Sienna stutter. It’s his southern charm. And gentlemanly manners. And habit of looking at her too long and too often.

Sienna has successfully navigated the labyrinth of Hollywood heart-throbs. But can she traverse the tenuous trails of Tennessee without losing her head? Or worse, her heart?

*Note to reader – this review is going to be a scattered review because I have all of this awesomeness running around in my brain and I can’t make it flow because it is just too much.  Too much awesomeness.  Thanks for making all this awesomeoness, Penny.*

My ode to Penny:

It is ridiculously insane how quickly my life shuts down when a Penny Reid book shows up on my kindle.  I feel like I need a “Penny Reid leave” for work when one of her books pop up because I am pretty sure I am useless and they are paying me to daydream about what I have already read and what is to come.  I also need to hire a catering company to cook my meals and serve them to me because I don’t want to bother in preparing food or shoveling it into my mouth because I need to read.  Priorities people! But my work won’t give me leave and I don’t have the money to pay someone to cook for me so I had to slowly read and digest all shiny words that Penny typed and they spoke to my soul. 

This is my tenth book by Penny and they just keep getting better and better.  All of her books are wonderful but somehow she sets this high level of awesomeness and surpasses it with each new book that comes out.  “Grin and Beard it” is no different. 

I know that I have said this before but what I love about all Penny’s characters is that they are just so logical.  If something is on their mind, they verbalize it instead of keeping it in and letting it destroy the light of love.  They all are mature adults, who rarely have miscommunication problems or knowingly do something to spite the other.  They think things through to the end and make their decisions based on a sensible outcome.   It is like they are almost real human beings.

On to the characters:

If you read “Beauty and the Mustache” you will remember a few unpleasant stories about Jethro told from his sister Ashley’s perspective.  During that book, I thought that I wouldn’t really ever care for him because of what he did to her and his family just seemed unforgivable.  However, Penny’s writing of Jethro won me over.  He had me swooning throughout the entire book. His attraction to Sienna, a curvy Hollywood writer/actress, was enough to for me to hand over my family heirloom diamond ring and ask him to marry me…wait, flip that…I would totally accept a ring from him in a matter of milliseconds.  The way he cared for his family after straightening himself out spoke volumes of his character but then add the way he treats Sienna made him perfect.  You will find that Jethro just wants the woman that he wants, that speaks to his heart, no matter who she is just as long as she is his. 

Sienna isn’t too shabby herself.  Her quick wittedness paired with a strong personality is just the kind of woman that belongs in the Winston clan.  Anyone who can win over Cletus (and of course Jethro) and make him fiercely protective her and her relationship with his brother has my vote. 

And while Sienna was great and Jethro was handsome and wonderful, I will say that Cletus won my heart.  He is this book’s VIP.  Something about the loveable weird parts of him (blueberry pancakes) brought the laughter.  I am looking forward to see what woman takes his breath away.

In real life thoughts:

I have no idea how six handsome brothers, who are brilliant, musically inclined, well-read and kind-hearted would ever be single in a small town in Tennessee but if there is such a clan, I volunteer as tribute to move down there and, you know, be their company and maybe fall in love with one of them. J

To end with a quote:

There is a moment in the book when Sienna receives some bad news and while Jethro doesn’t know what is happening but he knows that she needs to be comforted so he asks Sienna to dance.  When she asks why, his response is simple: “Because you want me to hold you, but you don’t know how to ask.” That right there, it left me speechless and in awe. A man who knows what his woman needs even before she does.