‘You Deserve Each Other’: An Unusually Fun Romance Novel
STORY | Dating Nicholas is perfect. He treats Naomi well, and everything is like a fairy tale… until it’s not. Some two years and one engagement ring later, and Naomi has had enough – in short, she’s miserable. Nicholas is still ideal boyfriend material (or so she thinks), but what they once had (or maybe didn’t have?) just isn’t there anymore.
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Trouble is, Naomi doesn’t want to be the one who breaks them, and so she stays. Then she discovers Nicholas too has reservations, and so the gloves come off as something of a who-will-call-off-the-wedding war breaks out!
You Deserve Each Other, by Sarah Hogle | Book Review
REVIEW | This is one of those books I really don’t know quite what to make of it. On the one had, it’s a supremely entertaining comedy and on the other, I cannot get the first person POV that is Naomi’s thoughts out of my head! She’s got plenty of animosity to go around, this is just fact. As a result of this, the book sort of squeezes itself dry of any sweet or more romantic feels.
Looking past this, You Deserve Each Other is a fun read. There’s some laughs and the questions mark that asks whether or not these two can even be happy. Most of the interaction Naomi has with her would-be mother-in-law is quite funny and the whole lovers-to-enemies reversal can be fun, too. At least it is most of the time. I do feel as though some of Naomi’s thoughts go too far, which then makes me unsure about her going back with Nicholas. Plus, the whole feuding thing, it goes on for longer than it should. That said, of course as a romantic-comedy novel, we do hope for this.
If you like secular tension-fueled fiction, this debut might be your cup of tea. You Deserve Each Other plays with so many of the favorite rom-com tropes, but still manages to flip the bigger plot trope on its head, which is always a fun switch to see. There’s something about the book that holds me back from gushing over it in the way I did The Runaway Princess as a genre peer. But if you’re into the whole tension “lover hate” thing, then this is sure to be a reader delight.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
Author: Sarah Hogle
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Source: Bought
Publication Date: 2020
Find the Review Elsewhere: Goodreads
Find the Book Elsewhere: Goodreads
Genre: Fiction; Romance, Secular Contemporary
Rating: 3 out of 5
Content: This is secular fiction so there’s multiple F-word uses, along with other more commonplace profanity. There’s LOTS of foreplay and suggestion innuendo/sexual content; a man is aroused during a fight. This would definitely be an R-rating if it were a movie.
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