Have you ever wished you could mold your boyfriend into
the perfect man? Do you wonder if the perfect man even
exists? Have you ever been on a horrible date? If so, you
will definitely relate to Lucy and Martha! In MAN CAMP,
Adrienne Brodeur creates a wonderful place where we can
send our not so perfect man to learn all the things men
should already know!
Lucy, a biologist and Martha, an actress, are best friends
living in New York. After a bout of disastrous dates,
Martha decides to start a dating service called FirstDate.
Martha goes on dates and then critiques the men to show
them what they're doing wrong. The men she meets are
egotistical and clueless on how to talk to women. Martha
yearns for a masculine man and not one who talks with her
as a girl friend would. She's starting to think New York
is full of metrosexuals and all the manly men are gone.
Lucy has been dating her boyfriend Adam for two years.
After going on a ''romantic getaway'' with him, she
discovers he isn't as manly as she thought he was. Lucy
credits living in New York for his lack of skills in the
outdoors. If Adam doesn't learn some manly skills soon,
this might seriously hurt their relationship. After all,
what woman wants to have to be the one to chop wood and
chase away the scary animals?
Lucy's friend Cooper comes to town to visit Lucy. Martha
is blown away by Cooper's southern charm. She wonders why
men in New York can't act like him. Together, the three of
them come up with the idea of Man Camp. Martha would send
all her past dates from FirstDate to Man Camp to learn how
to be a proper man. Lucy tricks Adam into going under
false pretenses.
Cooper lives in West Virginia and runs a farm. All the men
are sent to his farm to learn how to do manly things such
as fishing, chopping wood, milking cows, hunting,
shooting, etc. Cooper will be the teacher to all the men,
since he is the epitome of a real man.
Martha starts to develop feelings for Cooper but something
is making him distant? What is Cooper so worried about?
Will Martha end up with Cooper, the perfect southern
gentleman? Can Lucy turn Adam into the perfect man by
sending him to Man Camp?
MAN CAMP was a hilarious look at the way women and men
differ from each other. The characters were a joy to read
about and felt very real to me. I can picture myself in
Martha and could relate to everything she went through on
her dates. Adrienne Brodeur wrote a delightful story that
will have you thinking about her characters long after you
close the book.
A biologist studying patterns of sexual selection, Lucy
Stone knows a lot about mating–particularly that in the
animal kingdom, males will go to any length to attract
females. Why, then, are their human counterparts so hopeless
in courtship?
This is the question that Lucy and her best friend, Martha
McKenna, struggle to answer. Consider Adam, Lucy’s boyfriend
of two years, who demonstrates on an ostensibly romantic
camping trip that he can’t build a fire, split wood, or
jump-start a car. Worse still, he’s scared to go into the
woods after dark. Or take Jesse, Martha’s younger brother,
an opera aficionado and neurotic extraordinaire who can’t
summon the courage to make the first move on the woman he’s
crazy about. And what about the extensive list of men with
whom Martha has endured the torments of the first date.
But then there’s Cooper Tuckington, Lucy’s best friend from
college. Born and bred on his family’s West Virginia dairy
farm, Cooper fits anyone’s description of a man’s man, and
yet he is chivalrous and charming. During his annual visit
to New York City, he rewires Lucy’s lamps, builds her
shelves, and holds forth on subjects from great painters to
the great outdoors, all the while pulling out chairs and
opening doors for the ladies. Surely, think Martha and Lucy,
the men in their lives would benefit from the tutelage of
someone who knows how to treat a woman.
Thus, Man Camp is born. With a little feminine persuasion,
Lucy and Martha convince Adam, Jesse, and a handful of their
other male acquaintances to visit Cooper’s farm, where they
will learn everything a guy should know, from cars to
carpentry to chivalry–and that’s just the C’s. But life on
the farm isn’t exactly as it seems–and the boys soon prove
themselves in ways the women would never have imagined. In
the process, Lucy and Martha themselves learn a good bit
about life and love.
The perfect can’t-put-it-down novel for all of us who’ve
needed to bring out the inner man in the men we love, Man
Camp is a brilliant, witty, and insightful romp through the
wilds of dating and mating.