Friends To Lovers | 2.17.23
Escaping the friendzone
I love the following three books a lot, and they’re by three of my favorite authors (of romance, of all time). I am also not hugely a fan of the friends to lovers trope. Nothing against it! But there’s something a lot less satisfying to me about them because I guess I figure in most situations, most people develop romantic relationships with friends so the stakes aren’t as exciting? Also, especially for heterosexual cis romances, there’s a part of me that finds it frustrating that inevitably a close M/F relationship becomes romantic, continuing the “men and women can’t be friends” nonsense which has specifically hurt women, either by pitting them against each other or making male friends feel entitled to them romantically. That being said, sometimes these books, despite that, are extremely good. For instance!
Josh and Hazel's Guide To Not Dating by Christina Lauren. My now-husband got me this book for Christmas 2021, and when I first read it, I hadn’t purposefully read a romance novel in a decade. It was the only book I read in January 2022, but after Yulin Kuang’s IG Stories near the end of the month (see below), it was also my gateway book to the world of Christina Lauren and rom coms in similar veins.
Josh and Hazel met in college, when Hazel, a hot mess in every possible way, vomits on Josh’s shoes at a party but still manages to charm him. So when Josh turns out to be present-day kindergarten teacher Hazel’s best friend’s brother (her best friend is a fellow teacher and married to the principal of Hazel’s new school), she’s delighted. He’s hot as hell and because he’s kinda buttoned up she’s certain they’ll never be anything more than friends, which is fine because she’s always wanted to be his friend. So they become friends. Then Hazel’s apartment floods and she needs a place to stay… and Josh has a guest room. What starts as a surprise reunion and becomes a temporary roommate situation evolves into a dating pact where these two historically unlucky-in-love pals set each other up on blind dates but go on them together as double dates for solidarity. When will they realize that the reason none of their double dates stick is because they should be dating EACH OTHER?
This book hits you right in the feelings with themes of being Too Much (I can relate) and also Never Enough (sigh). I love Josh and Hazel’s friendship almost as much as I love them together, and I’m always a fan of an overcomplicated dating pact that inevitably forces people to reckon with the fact that the solution to their loneliness has been in front of them all along if they’re brave enough to be vulnerable.
Rating: 5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
People We Meet On Vacation by Emily Henry. Poppy and Alex are best friends and total opposites. 10 years ago, they were introduced at college to carpool back to their shared hometown, and their bond only got stronger the more trips they took. See, while Alex is a buttoned up high school teacher, Poppy gets itchy when she stays in one place too long and has turned that wanderlust first into a lifestyle and then into a career. Every year since they met, Alex and Poppy have taken a trip together… until two years ago when everything got ruined and they haven’t spoken since. This book has a split chronology, letting us follow the breadcrumbs of what happened two years ago on each of the trips leading up to it and the present day trip they take when Poppy realizes the last time she was truly happy was when she was traveling with Alex and wants to repair what’s been broken.
Of Emily Henry’s three books (at time of writing), this is my least favorite, though to be clear: it’s still a 5 out of 5 from me because it’s a truly great book, and that’s only notable because Beach Read and Book Lovers took up residence in my heart and head so forcefully I don’t have space for it. I appreciate on a craft level that EH changed things up, formatting-wise, but I tend not to be a fan of split chronology storytelling as a reader. It is physically painful to be torn away from a big moment in present day to head 5 years earlier in the very next chapter, rather than getting to stay with the timeline where things are starting to come together. That’s a preference thing, though, and it’s the nature of the beast for a split chronology story. I just don’t personally love that.
This book also gets a special place in my heart because the screenplay is being adapted by Yulin Kuang, my long-time career crush. Yulin is a filmmaker who made a name for herself as a writer/director in digital shorts and web series before selling her own show to CW Seed and working as a TV director and feature writer, and recently got a three book deal as a romance author herself. Yulin and I have mutual colleagues in the indie film/digital series space (and I even interviewed her on a podcast once, though I don’t know if she remembers who I am) though she was/is WAY more successful than me there, and her IG Story series of romance novels she was reading was the direct influence for me starting my own journey before getting way deep into them myself. All that is to say… I will be absolutely rabid when this movie comes out for more than one reason.
Rating: 5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥
99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne. Sally Thorne and Beth O’Leary are two authors I really respect because each of their books is completely unlike the ones before it on a format/form level, while also still delivering on what you loved about the previous ones. Would I prefer Sally Thorne write more books in the vein/vibe of The Hating Game? Yes obviously, that book has me by the fucking throat and all I can squeak out is “more.” Would I fall all over myself for another Beth O’Leary in the style and sensibility of The Flatshare? Of course!! But as a writer, I am always down to see what these two come up with.
Which brings us to 99 Percent Mine, where Darcy is constantly playing second fiddle to her estranged twin Jamie when it comes to their shared best friend, Tom Valeska. Jamie found Tom first, which means Tom is 99% loyal to Jamie in all ways, leaving Darcy pining with a mere 1% of his heart. But when the twins inherit their grandmother’s cottage and Tom is leading the house flip on it, Darcy decides she wants the 99% loyalty for herself and isn’t willing to run away from this fight.
Darcy is a frequently selfish, unlikeable protagonist, and given she’s our only POV that definitely got under my skin, but I find Sally Thorne’s writing so fascinating and dense with feeling that despite loving Darcy/Tom a little less than Lucy/Josh on character levels, and finding this book a little harder to parse narratively, it’s still absolutely worth a read. You will feel a million things at once, and as per usual, I recommend Breakmaster Cylinder as a musical pairing for peak hysteria while reading. Which I imagine is what Sally Thorne is going for, because she’s excellent at it.
Rating: 4/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥
Next week, I’ll be recommending books with major plot shenanigans at the center, because I love nonsense and I love love that flourishes within it!
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!