Highly Flawed Individual
About
I had it all—money, a solid finance career, a terrace in Sydney’s The Rocks, and a rotation of women that would make most men quietly resent me. Commitment? Not my thing.
Then I met Jezebel Ekas.
She’s an American MMA fighter, dangerously attractive, and completely unimpressed by my usual charm. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, she made me consider doing something deeply unnatural—settling down.
Unfortunately, that’s right around the time everything went very, very wrong.
Thanks to a rare and deeply inconvenient medical situation, I’ve been forced into a lifestyle I am spectacularly unqualified for: keeping my pants on.
Explaining it isn’t an option. Lying, however, is.
What follows is a series of increasingly bad decisions, questionable excuses, and situations no grown man should ever find himself in—all while trying to win over the one woman I can’t afford to lose.
Turns out, being a better man is a lot harder when your entire identity is built on being a terrible one.
And that was just the beginning.
Highly Flawed Individual is a dark comedy about sex, lies, and the worst possible time to fall in love.
Praise for this book
Highly Flawed Individual is wrapped up in humor, romance, and drama with an important message about life in general.
SYNOPSIS
In Highly Flawed Individual, thirty-year-old eternal bachelor Archie Flynn has it all: a successful finance career, a beautiful terrace home in Sydney's highly sought-after Rocks district, and a thriving sex life that James Bond would envy. In other words, life is perfect.
Until, the stunning Jezebel Ekas, an American professional mixed martial arts fighter, enters his life. Jezebel is a woman far superior to Archie in so many ways. When their paths cross, the life Archie thought so perfect is quickly turned upside down. Smart, funny, strong-willed, this is the woman he wants to settle down with, but she won't fall easily for his usual lines and his promiscuous past is about to catch up with him.
T.C. Roberts' debut novel takes a hard and honest look at the "modern" man who might not be quite as cool and sexy as he thinks. With a knowing nod and a self-deprecating humor that draws you in, Roberts details Archie and Jezebel's whirlwind, almost-but-not-quite, romance.
Archie Flynn works hard and plays hard. His life as a bachelor gives him the freedom to enjoy his true passions: women and sex. But that life comes to an abrupt stop when he is faced with a mysterious condition. In an ironic twist, Archie meets the woman of his dreams during the midst of his crisis, preventing him from taking their relationship to the next level. He soon finds himself on a journey of grief for the life he once knew and loved.
Highly Flawed Individual is wrapped up in humor, romance, and drama. While the story itself has a comedic tone to it, there's a much deeper meaning behind it all. Archie spends his life living for himself and never considers that there's more to life than women and sex. But his "condition" forces him into a life of celibacy and opens his eyes to a world outside of his little bubble.
While Archie was definitely a bit of an arrogant womanizer, I did sympathize with him as he began to navigate his way through his new found celibacy. His desperation and dramatic response to his situation was at times a bit exaggerated, but it makes sense given the drastic turn his life was suddenly taking. Regardless of anyone's circumstances, we all have different ways of handling grief.
The ironic twist of meeting Jezebel at that time was the perfect way to demonstrate that life has a funny way of working out. While Archie might not have seen it right from the beginning, he would have ended up down a much different path had he not met her at that exact point. I admittedly couldn't get a good read on Jezebel at first - she was a badass who obviously had interest in Archie, but I struggled to feel their connection at times.
Overall, this was a nice, quick read. I appreciated the humor while also clearly making an important (and often overlooked) point on life in general.