"The Girlfriend Wager" by Edward Davies

BOOK TITLE: The Girlfriend Wager
AUTHOR: Edward Davies
YEAR: 2015
GENRE: Fiction
SUBGENRE: Sex Drama-Comedy
GRADE: Pass


In 1990’s England, five college buddies, Rob, Kent, Adrian, Jim, and Hugh, get together in a bar one night and make a wager with each other. Whoever could keep a relationship with a girl for at least three months while having sex at least once would have the rest of the group pay for his drinks after the college year was over. Girl shyness, awkward behavior, previous lovers, and many other strange obstacles get in the way of determining a true victor. Hearts are broken, embarrassments happen, and the only escape for these five friends is a giant glass of cold beer. Is anybody really a winner in this story or are these five virgins just a group of sad sops?

I’m going to start with the biggest reason why this e-book gets a passing grade. The concepts of girl shyness, social awkwardness, virginity, and fear of rejection all resonate with me on a deep level. Yes, this is intended to be funny in some places, but that doesn’t stop the book from speaking the truth from time to time. When I went to high school and college, I was one of the wallflowers who stayed in the background while being protected from the emotional despair of romance. Everyone was always saying to me, “Just ask her out! It’s no big deal! If she says no, just move on to the next one!” If love was that easy, I’d have a whole harem of girls coming after me. But as I’ve found out both from my own experiences with dating and from reading this book, it’s complicated on so many levels. I want to love and be loved, but getting my foot in the door is harder for me than it is for the five friends, and that’s saying something.

Before I get too far into a rant, I have to discuss the other reason why this book gets a passing grade: the pacing. While it is true the book is 400-plus pages long, it reads so quickly that you won’t feel bogged down by too much description. Besides, most of the descriptions come from 90’s pop culture references that I actually understand, so the pacing is even better. If you’re an author and comedy is your intended genre, you don’t want to spend too much time on funny descriptions. The jokes were delivered with such rapid-fire wit that I basically blitzed through the entire story with no potholes or traffic lights along the way. It helps that the witty aspects of this book come from the author using a lot of British vernacular like “fancy” and “bullocks”. I swear it’s like listening to a CD by The Streets, except funnier…for the most part.

There would have been a time when I considered giving this book an extra credit grade, or five stars for all of you Good Reads and Amazon junkies. However, there are certain unforgivable flaws that keep me from doing so. Try as he might to edit this story down to its last detail, Mr. Davies left behind a few glaring mistakes, such as Becca calling Hugh “Paul” and a sentence that reads “Kent glared at Kent”. But these are things Edward Davies could fix on the fly and not break too much of a sweat.

But then you have the pornographic aspects of the book which make the story seem slightly unrealistic. Yes, it’s realistic in the sense that shyness and awkwardness get in the way of a lot of good relationships. But when I say pornographic aspects, I’m talking about all of the women having large breasts, giant asses, and an easy way to get to know them. Plus, there’s a lot of talk about sticking things in their vaginas and squeezing their titties, which are also things you’d find in a cheap porn movie. Granted, this book is somewhat based on Edward Davies’ past at college and a lot of his friends really did talk like that. But even with that background realness, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to take the book seriously or jack off to it like a Playboy magazine.

I’m not going to bring the hammer down too hard on Edward, because all in all, this book earned all four of its stars. While it is true the two of us are good friends online, I’m giving him the passing grade out of respect for his book, not out of service to our friendship. I firmly believe Edward Davies has what it takes to launch his literature into the mainstream one day. He just needs to spend a little quality time with the realism and grammatical aspects of his manuscript before sending it out. Before I read “The Girlfriend Wager”, I delved into “Divine Intervention”, another book by Mr. Davies. I’d definitely say “The Girlfriend Wager” is a huge improvement from his last effort, so you’re damn right there’s hope for him. Hell, it might be a sure thing that he becomes successful!