I love your thoughts on messy romance and our tastes evolving as we get older! I like messy, but not immature, and I find that often (mostly because of my advanced age of 42), I am getting impatient with stories of adults acting like teenagers, and I can’t always relate to it since I am an old soul and have acted 40 since I was 18 ~ not necessarily a positive thing, just the nature of my personality and a fact of getting married at 24 and baby at 25. I also really don’t love the miscommunication trope. However, there is also a subset of these books that I find so endearing. I agree with you about the difference being GROWTH over the course of the book! A book I recently read and LOVED (might be my favorite of 2023) in which both characters needed to grow a bit is Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young. Might not be quite as messy as you’re looking for, but I loved the growth! Also, THANK YOU for writing about romance on Substack ~ you and Chelsey F are the only others that I know of here and I so appreciate it!
Ooooh, I need to add that to my TBR! I feel like I've seen that floating intriguingly around the bookish internet. And yes, right now I'm in a place where I just find it so satisfying to read about people figuring things out? (I was a messy early twenty-something so I suspect I have a lot more tolerance for messy twenty-something books, haha.)
This perfectly articulates my thoughts on You, Again. I have been trying to figure out my own tastes and what about that book made me love it so, so much and I think your reflection is everything I couldn't organize about my own thoughts!
I love your reflections and opinions about romance. Thank you so much for giving me something to look forward to every week!
Thank you so much! I love that moment when the reason *why* I love a book clicks into place and I unlock one of those little reading epiphanies that permanently changes my life for the better. (Like when I finally realized I only like reading mysteries from the perspective of the detective.)
Now you’ve got me bumping up You, Again on my TBR! If you love Terrible at Titles have you come across Jess Pan’s work yet? She writes dispatches about her coworkers at the London bookshop she works at. It’s a complete delight!
I love your thoughts on messy romance and our tastes evolving as we get older! I like messy, but not immature, and I find that often (mostly because of my advanced age of 42), I am getting impatient with stories of adults acting like teenagers, and I can’t always relate to it since I am an old soul and have acted 40 since I was 18 ~ not necessarily a positive thing, just the nature of my personality and a fact of getting married at 24 and baby at 25. I also really don’t love the miscommunication trope. However, there is also a subset of these books that I find so endearing. I agree with you about the difference being GROWTH over the course of the book! A book I recently read and LOVED (might be my favorite of 2023) in which both characters needed to grow a bit is Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young. Might not be quite as messy as you’re looking for, but I loved the growth! Also, THANK YOU for writing about romance on Substack ~ you and Chelsey F are the only others that I know of here and I so appreciate it!
Ooooh, I need to add that to my TBR! I feel like I've seen that floating intriguingly around the bookish internet. And yes, right now I'm in a place where I just find it so satisfying to read about people figuring things out? (I was a messy early twenty-something so I suspect I have a lot more tolerance for messy twenty-something books, haha.)
This perfectly articulates my thoughts on You, Again. I have been trying to figure out my own tastes and what about that book made me love it so, so much and I think your reflection is everything I couldn't organize about my own thoughts!
I love your reflections and opinions about romance. Thank you so much for giving me something to look forward to every week!
Thank you so much! I love that moment when the reason *why* I love a book clicks into place and I unlock one of those little reading epiphanies that permanently changes my life for the better. (Like when I finally realized I only like reading mysteries from the perspective of the detective.)
Now you’ve got me bumping up You, Again on my TBR! If you love Terrible at Titles have you come across Jess Pan’s work yet? She writes dispatches about her coworkers at the London bookshop she works at. It’s a complete delight!
I have and it brings me so much joy! Give me all the dispatches from British bookshops.