While romantic comedy movies are on the short list of My Jams, I am pretty new to romantic books. I’ve read four in my life, counting this one. So, please go into this review knowing that I am out of my element.
Lucy Hutton is a solid protagonist. She’s a successful important person at a publisher, hard-working, into retro fashion, kind of goofy, and her parents run a strawberry farm. I liked Lucy. I had a Fiction Crush on Lucy.
Lucy is fun, and it’s fun to hear how much she hates her co-worker, Joshua Templeman. He seems like a real piece of work. Smug (I hate smug), condescending (hate it), super fit, etc. I wouldn’t be friends with this guy. I hate this guy. They’re stuck sharing an office, sitting across from one another, telepathically passing hatred back and forth. Man, how in the world are these two going to continue working together without farting in each other’s lunchbox? Who knows?!? If you’ve ever heard of romance you know where the story is going, but the ride there is a fun one.
Without spoiling anything, here is a list of what I liked and didn’t like in this book. Maybe this list is more for me than you, so that you can help me find other romantic comedy-type books.
PROS: Lucy is a cool bookish type. Lucy and Joshua’s hatred is entertaining because of their wittiness. The fights made sense, and for the most part people behaved like real people. Love and hate are described a little magically, just how they feel to us normal people in real life. Supporting characters are interesting, actual people.
CONS: It’s possible, possibly, that some people have sexual intercourse in this book. I don’t really prefer a play-by-play of sex. There aren’t enough supporting characters. Don’t these people have friends? Don’t they talk about other stuff?
If you can recommend a witty, fun romcom-type book with people behaving like 90% normally, I’m there!
3.5/5
ETA: I enjoyed debcapsfan’s review of this book which is here. Scanning through comments for recs.
If you liked this, and don’t really want a lot of graphic sexy times, you should check out Christina Lauren’s Dating You/Hating You. It has a wonderful heroine who is exceedingly good at her job, but has to put up with a lot more sexism in the work place than Lucy. The book has a lot of witty banter, protagonists who both have a network of fun and believable friends and family around them, some pretty awesome frenemy pranks in the work place, before the couple finds their satisfying and realistic happy ending.
Rochelle just reviewed it, there should be a few others on here if you search for it too.
Rainbow Rowell. She is your answer. Maybe start with Attachments which is an adult romantic comedy in book form (takes place during Y2K!), or Landline, which examines romance in the context of an existing marriage.
I fully support this suggestion, and add that I would strongly suggest that you read Attachments first as Rowell’s skill grows over time and its best to grow with her.