Monthly Review: Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys

2 For what audience(s) is this book intended, and how can you tell? (In other words, for whom would you recommend this book?)

4 How would you describe the author's style of writing? What's your opinion of the style?
(You must include a passage or two from the text if you choose this question.)

8 Pick a character that interested you and write about them in depth. You can also analyze a relationship between two different characters.

Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys is a fictional novel written by Kate Brian tells the story about a 16 years old junior army tomboy "brat" who has to live with (cute) 7 “Abercrombie God” boys while her parents have been transferred overseas to Korea for the military. Megan never actually had an ordinary life, having real best friends, or stayed at a place for no more than 3 years; her whole life consists of moving here and there from all over the world. This time, Megan has the decision to either stay here in the United States or move all the way to Korea with her parents. She decides to stay in the United States, but then she’s going to have to live with her dad’s friends’ family, the McGowans, which are in Massachusetts. Megan currently lives in Texas.

Megan wonders how things will be like living with 7 boys, and assuming that those boys are the kind of

boys with missing teeth, smeared faces of red Popsicle goo, beady little eyes laughing at her as they lured her behind their house to see their “puppy” and then lassoed her to a tree and hung her upside down. Greasy-haired, chubby-legged, evil little boys. Boys with worms in their pockets who ate gum off the ground and pulled her hair. P.6

Living with hot guys in one house doesn't mean that things will turn out so smoothly. Megan and her parents use to go visit the McGowans all the time back in the days, and she use to play with a few of those 7 boys too. They were nothing but trouble! Once Megan arrived at their house again, she see all the 7 boys outside in the yard playing ball with the younger sons. They all seem so magical to her as if she was in heaven. And she thought living with boys were nothing but trouble and disgusting greasy hands. Well boy was she ever wrong. All the boys… I mean, teenage boys are H-O-T!

Out of all the 7 McGowan boys, Megan, and Megan’s friends, I would have to say that Finn interested me the most. He’s the only guy that stood out in the story, to me anyways. He’s the 4th son in the family and he is super nice to Megan and he‘s practically her only friend out of all the 7 boys. Finn is an artist and he paints for fun. He hides in the shed in the backyard to paint and it’s sort of like his little studio. Throughout the whole story, Finn and Megan got closer and closer to each other that they were kissing each other in the shed!

Megan stopped [talking] suddenly - Finn’s face had gone all weird. He wasn’t smiling anymore. It seemed like he had stopped breathing… And then he leaned forward and kissed her… Megan froze. P. 224

Oh wow! So Megan wasted her whole time focusing on Evan, falling in love with Evan, tolerating with Hailey’s shit towards Megan, wanting to be with Evan, everything with Evan, that she totally missed out on the obvious. When Finn and Megan started talking, I knew for sure that Finn was such a nice guy and that they were going to get together anyways. I mean, when I didn’t even read this book yet, I kind of knew there were going to have a little bit of romance in it anyways; Megan living with 7 guys? Of course something was bound to happen. And I knew all along that Finn was going to be the guy that Megan have affections to. She was just too blind in the first place.
I also remember that when Megan was still new to living with them, all the boys got together in Evan’s room and talked about how to get rid of Megan, because they think now that she’s living with them, there are certain rules to follow, and Finn was in it too.

'This sucks,’ someone whispered. “Since when are they so big on us following the rules?' … 'We had this place wired tight, yo,' Doug sad. '…I say we ice her until she cracks. We make it so bad she’ll be beggin’ to jet to Korea.' Megan swallowed hard. Wasn’t anyone going to defend her? Finn? Evan? Anyone? P. 78

Well, Megan wasn’t so comfortable living with them just yet, and of course, since Finn is one of the guys in the family, he’s like practically one of them! So of course he has to be in with them. But Megan didn’t hear him say a word about what Doug had said. The next day, Megan told Finn what she had heard and then Finn said to not worry about it and don’t let his brothers get to her. Then he smiled at her and she smiled back.

I have to say that this book was absolutely entertaining and I can totally imagine all the scenes out perfectly and easily. The way Kate Brian writes in this book makes it like a teen’s book, even though it is one, but her style is just absolutely amazing. I don’t know how she made the dramatic part of the book so dramatic. I wish this could be a movie though. It would be so cool! And I can already think of all the actors to play out every single person from the novel. I wonder what it would be like if I had to live with 7 sons of all ages under one roof. This tomboy brat experienced a lot for the past year, living with those Abercrombie Gods. And it was pretty tough for her to go to a new school too, even though she’s use to it. But overall, I’m really impressed and I’m pretty satisfied after finished reading this book. I’d give this book a 10 out of 10 because of its uniqueness. Priscilla recommended this book to me actually, and I would recommend this book to any girl who likes reading book with school drama, adventure, and a little bit of a cheesy romance. This book is really easy to read and I know for sure that if I have some extra money, I’m seriously going to walk down to Borders and buy more of Kate Brian’s books. Recently, I’ve checked online to see if there are any other information about Kate Brian and her books and I’ve come across her website called Private and it consists of online web series of her book Private. It looks pretty cool although I didn’t watch a clip just yet. I want to know if there is a sequel to Megan Meade’s Guide to the McGowan boys though. If so, I would get it right away!