Customer Reviews

Man Camp: A Novel

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Man Camp is the story of two women who, instead of trying to make men soften up, try to make men become more masculine. When this story opens, Martha is single, and Lucy is in a two-year relationship with Adam, a great guy adide from the fact that, on a camping trip, he has no idea how to build a fire, and he's terrified of the woods.

Frustrated by men of this calibre, Martha sets up First Date, a service in which she meets men to find out what they want from their dating experience and how she can help them better their chances of getting the Second Date. In this delightful story, Adrienne Brodeur brings out the best and worst in both men and women.

Lucy's friend from college, Cooper, is a Southern boy who grew up on a dairy farm. On a visit to New York, he and Martha meet- with predictable consequences. Together, the three of them start Man Camp, a week-long program in which men from the FirstDate program go and live on the farm to get more masculine. There's a host of interesting characters: the boring historian Simon; Kurt, the guy who thinks that every woman should be falling all over herself to date him; Bryce, the Metrosexual; Wallace, the overweight NBC producer; Jesse, Martha brother; and Adam, Lucy's boyfriend. Adam is invited- though not told he'll be a "camper"- to join everyone on this excursion.

Predictably and somewhat unrealistically, Cooper runs into trouble on the farm, and in an act of solidarity the campers jump in to help save the day. Predictably, this book runs into the old "everything will be OK" format that many books get caught up in; but still this does not ruin the premise or the rest of the plot. In all, this a is a very charming book, and its a quick read that will have you turning pages quickly.

Kind of corny and predictable, but I've read worse. Redeeming qualities are what the reader (hopefully) comes to realize - that what men lack in one area they make up for in another. The odd part is, this is not spelled out in the novel, but everything else youu could imagine predictably is. If you are going to be obvious about everything, at least be obvious about something as important as that! And it is an important lesson that sometimes gets buried in all of our frustrations with men.

One thing I could most certainly do without and that has NO place in this type of novel is the detailed and in depth desciptions of milking and inseminating a cow. That's better left to a non-fiction book titled "Milking and Inseminating a Cow" than a fiction book called "Man Camp."

Props to the author for mentioning Ulster County, NY in this novel.

I'm a guy and I loved this book. There are lots of funny scenes in the story, and it was a lot of fun to picture which of my friends most resembled which of the guys who needed to go to Man Camp. The premise, that men have forgotten how to be REAL MEN, is true to a degree, and was just believable enough to keep the book from being too ridiculous.

In any case, at 212 pages the book is a perfect length for what it is. My wife is now enjoying it, and will undoubtedly pass it on to some of her friends.

This book makes a good companion for the movie "Hitch" and covers a lot of the same ground.

I very much enjoyed Man Camp by Adrienne Brodeur - thought it provided very unique and hilarious insights into gender differences and approaches to life, love, and relationships. Looking forward to her next novel!

Best friends Lucy Stone and Martha McKenna are on a mission: to teach sissy city men how to be men. Lucy, a biologist who sees the dating scene in scientific terms, is alarmed to find her own boyfriend, Adam, severely lacking in basic masculine skills on what turns out to be a not-so-very romantic weekend in the country; he can't build a fire, split wood, or jump-start a car --- and he's even afraid of noises on a nighttime trip to the outhouse! The weekend ends on an unhappy note, and with Lucy wondering if Adam is the man for her after all.

Martha has endured her last bad date, which actually broke her will to even try to find a guy, and has decided to concentrate on contributing to womankind by making men in general more appealing. She starts a business, FirstDate, which is a step in the right direction, teaching men how to make a good impression on a first date. Martha has a full schedule for her FirstDate service, and they all need her help terribly: the guy who knocks her beer into her lap twice, the date who knows more about hair products than Martha does, and the guy who mentions his mother's womb.

In fact, these poor men need way more help than just one date's worth. So Lucy and Martha come up with the idea of a camp men can go to in order to learn how to act like men. Lucy's hunky farmer friend, Cooper Tuckington, the model they wish all men could achieve in terms of masculinity, volunteers his farm and his help. Lucy, however, is appalled to discover electricity arcing between Martha and Cooper. Cooper, after all, is her back-up husband, according to a long-ago agreement between the two: if they reach a certain age and have found no one to marry, they plan to tie the knot.

Then again, what about Adam, who has many good qualities? Surely, he can be taught to be a manly man --- or can he? Lucy tricks Adam into believing he's one of the instructors at Man Camp, but in reality he's there to learn from Cooper. If he finds out the truth, how will that affect their relationship?

The Man Camp recruits accomplish various manly tasks, including changing flat tires, carpentry, firearms, fence building, and milking a cow. They watch movies in which the heroes are excellent manly role models, and they eat hearty man-style meals cooked up by Cooper's Southern belle mother, Beatrice.

Unfortunately, Beatrice has NOT taken a shine to Martha, who returns the hostility. Adding to Martha's angst over Cooper, he seems horribly distracted and her attempts to woo him appear to go nowhere. Is he just not interested in Martha after all? Is his mother's influence swaying him?

As a matter of fact, Cooper has a secret that is incredibly distressing. When the campers discover what Cooper's problem is, they hope to use their own skills to help him. Can the hapless students actually pull together and save their instructor?

(...)

I enjoyed this book, I'm a guy. The story is preposterous, but fun. I would like have to read more about time the metro-sexuals time at camp. It seemed they adapted to well to the farm, though. No one leaves, fed up with the work? And then they all come to the rescue of Cooper in the end? Too perfect. And what happened to the friction with Martha and Lucy over Cooper? It just vanished. Beatrice was a character I did not care for at all. The scene in the pistol range told me the author went to one to get a good description, or regularly visits one. Well done and accurately described.

I agree that the bar for "chick-lit" has not been set particularly high, but this novel doesn't work to raise it, either. As a woman, I'm a bit bothered by the whole idea of this silly sort of banality. I'm being generous with my two-star rating, because the idea is cute, however simplistic. Cute, however, is not the key to good writing or literary substance. The characters are "stock" and predicatable (see Kirkus Reviews for a similar opinion) and the writing is, at best, formulaic. It feels as though Broduer took a college (or Learning Annex) writing class, took notes and followed them rotely, rather than inspirationally. It's fine for a summer beach read (although there are better); best advice is: Wait for the paperback. (PS - As a movie, this would best be viewed on cable, if that helps put things in perspective.)

I must say that this book not only degraded men, but women, as well. Yuck.

I read this book in a day, started on my lunch break and finished when I got home. It goes very fast and makes you want to finish it too. Unlike other reviewers, I very much enjoyed the details about the farm life, having grown up on a dairy farm myself. I liked how it combined the urban NYC world and modern(but highly idealized) farming world. Rare to find a "chick lit" book that has farming (with accurate, easy for outsiders to understand) details in it.

Adrienne Brodeur's "Man Camp" centered around two friends, Lucy and Martha who were tired of city guys's lack of manliness as well as chivalry that Martha decided to start a company called "FirstDate" that would analyzed guys on their first dates. Martha would actually go out with each guy and later gave them feedback and helped them be a better date. Lucy herself was facing the same problem as her boyfriend, Adam, was anything but masculine. In fact, he was the exact opposite of Lucy's best friend, Cooper, who owned a farm in West Virginia and was very masculine as he was able to good at fixing cars, plumbing, carpentry and etc. All three decided to create a "Man Camp" where they would send Martha's clients to Cooper's farm and learn how to be a man. Adam and Martha's brother, Jesse, were also sent there but were led to believe they would be "counselors."

This was a very entertaining and engaging read. I can't but help agree to some of the characterization of the guys' helplessness which I myself find in many guys today. There were not a lot of character development and I didn't feel that I connected with the characters. The plot was not thick either and I can basically guess what happened half way through the book. However, it is still an entertaining and relaxing read!