The tenth time I laughed out loud reading Book Lovers was the moment I decided it was a 4.5-star romcom rather than a 4.
Another that many others have read and reviewed so it’s less important to provide a synopsis than it is to write about how it feels. Here we go: This is a book that, no doubt, has many of us readers of romcoms thinking “How did Emily Henry get full access to my life? Is a reality TV crew following me around a la Ed TV? Did she pay my friends and family for the interviews she clearly did to get this much personal information about me? Information that I probably wouldn’t have proffered myself if asked, no matter how honest I was being?” It’s a meta-commentary on contemporary romances as much as it is one. It’s the smalltown romance subgenre of romance novels of which it spends most of its time dissecting. It’s precisely the the kind of romcom that provides plenty of knowing laughs at the expense of its MC while never making fun of her. It’s a nice balance of a fully telegraphed from the prologue romance and the slow-burn trope.
It’s clear why Emily Henry is such a constant on the bestseller list and why her books are always featured on bookstore and library table displays. Romance novels are a dime a dozen at once yet there are never enough of them to satisfy their most dedicated readers. Maybe that’s why I put down as many as I pick up within 50 pages (my self-imposed DNF deciding line). I have borrowed more contemporary romance books and received more ARCs of them of which I haven’t gone past page 50 than most people have reading – in their entirety of any genres – in just the last decade. Meanwhile, Book Lovers is a book that I read in one day over twelve hours broken up only by checking my Disqus, playing with a friend’s puppy, preparing a week’s worth of breakfasts, and making/eating ramen. I loved every second.
Our HEA couple is Nora and Charlie. They’re both big city publishing/ book industry folx on the creative side that work (I guess) in the kind of novel we’re reading (I guess… or something like it). Nora is self-described as the woman in the romance novel that is left behind by the romantic lead man while he visits a small town and falls for the romantic lead woman (it’s a very cishet romcom). Nora is the wrong woman. She’s not destined for the typical marriage bells and pregnancy announcement HEA that, by the way, she doesn’t want (bless your damn heart, Emily Henry!). She’s not a workaholic (but she is), she’s just too busy. She’s Type A if binary “types” are a real thing and even if they’re not. She works out on her Peleton every morning, for godssakes! Charlie – For which we don’t get much interiority but, I ask, does it really matter? Are we reading to see ourselves in him? Or are we reading because we wish someone was enough like us but not enough like us to just “get” us and let us live and love us? – should be in NYC (where he belongs) but through romcom serendipity magic is exactly where he needs to be in order to be our MC’s love interest: a small town she happens to end up in as well thanks to that same romcom serendipity magic.
Readalikes boost: This book reminds me of another series of romcoms I like – though I like it more because it’s a standalone (thank the everloving gods). That series is the Bromance Book Club series which has hits and misses in that there are big hits and just ::shrug:: kinda OKs. In this case, it’s for the strong “com” part of the romcom label. It also reminds me of the book beside which it sits on the shelf in my bookcase, Linda Holmes’ Evvie Drake Starts Over, a near-perfect romcom that hits many of the same notes as Book Lovers that make it work for a particular kind of reader who just really wants to like contemporary romances more than she (let’s face it, usually “she” but not always “she,” but usually and, in this case, I’m talking about myself, a “she”) does.