RogerBW's Blog

Book Lovers, Emily Henry 07 October 2022

2022 romance. Nora Stephens is the other woman, the city-living partner who gets dumped after the man in her life has a life-changing rural experience. Until her sister takes her on a rural experience of her own…

I love the conceit here. Romances, and especially romantic comedies, often start with one or the other partner in a bad relationship which they'll have to get out of, and that person is usually dropped from the narrative, or given parody villain traits so that the reader doesn't mind that they're being left alone. But for them to work as credible opposition, they have to be people too, and one wonders what they're like when they aren't being The Future Ex.

And that's fine, but there are enough other complications in Nora's life that this doesn't seem quite the full answer to that question that it could have been. Nora has a sister, and for years since the death of their mother has been The Responsible One; but that isn't a sustainable relationship in the long term, and it's good to see that acknowledged and resolved. She has a lot of history that affects her in the present, and so does her potential partner Charlie. In making these people specific and individual, I think Henry gave up the opportunity to write the definitive book about the Other Woman archetype… but I find I don't mind.

There's banter; more to the point, there's banter that makes sense for these people in these situation, rather than being generically snappy dialogue. There are wants that are unacknowledged until they suddenly break open and affect everything. There's communication, and a welcome lack of Big Misunderstandings that would be trivially solved if only the principals would talk. (Though there's a bit of that in another relationship.) There are parents who are good but not perfect, who have more to them than simply to be the loving example of what the principals' relationship could become.

Too many stories see someone who's particular about they way they live their life as someone who needs to "relax", to get their horizons broadened by a manic pixie dream girl, etc.. I'm sure some of them do. But actually a lot of grown-ups have in fact established their preferences, and have good reasons for them, and don't do any harm by them, and I'm very pleased to see this book acknowledging that.

There are plenty of small niggles, and I didn't quite end up loving it, but this was still highly enjoyable and I'd recommend it with only slight caution.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1