I related to Hannah Bellinger’s fear that she’s a supporting cast member in her own life story I love a capable hero and was intrigued by Fox Thornton’s anxieties about taking on the role of captain.īut this book keeps insisting there are two kinds of people, the male ones and the female ones. In many ways, I was the ideal reader for HOOK, LINE, AND SINKER (Avon, 385 pp., paper, $15.99), Tessa Bailey’s friends-to-lovers story about a crab-boat fisherman and a music-loving film production assistant. The jokes shine all the brighter against some deeply painful moments in this story: This is humor as trauma response, romance edition. One exchange made me laugh so hard and so long I ached for days - my laughter muscles have not had a lot of exercise in the past few years. Not just tonally upbeat in the way of many so-called rom-coms, but text-your-friends, chortle-’til-you-cry funny. HUSBAND MATERIAL (Sourcebooks Casablanca, 422 pp., paper, $15.99) is, above all else, terrifically funny.
Luc’s friends are marrying, becoming parents, establishing stable polycules - you know, doing grown-up things.
Two years later, they are still at a reasonable level of bliss, but everyone around them seems to be moving onward. Jackson’s experience in young adult literature shows in this book’s close point of view and its depiction of a character on the brink of something transformative.Ĭontinuing the themes of hot messes: When last we saw Luc (hot mess) and Oliver (painfully organized mess) in Alexis Hall’s “Boyfriend Material,” they had been basking in the euphoria of being fake boyfriends turned real boyfriends. Kian and Hudson are hot messes and they make terrible decisions - but they make less terrible decisions together, and the parts when they’re in sync shine with a beautiful, blooming sense of wonder. It’s also irresistible, and it shows why they both find it hard to move on. These two push each other’s buttons as if they were born knowing where to poke: Their negative chemistry at the start is incendiary and chaotic. Especially with someone like Hudson, opaque and surface-perfect, with deep scars he’s desperate to keep hidden. The constant churn of trying to understand his own spiraling thoughts has made him an expert in reading other people’s unspoken communications - a great trait for a journalist but a horrible one for an ex.
Kian is a whirlpool of self-doubt and anxiety.