Reading Lately Book Club: February Pick
if you like fake dating, grumpy x sunshine, and forced proximity with 90s rom com vibes, this book is for you!
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I hope you enjoyed reading our January book, The Good Part by Sophie Cousens, if you chose to join in book club. I can’t express enough how much joy it has brought me over the last 6 months so have so many friends who are not just down, but excited to discuss books together. Our IRL book club meetings are always a highlight of my month!
Our February book is Say You’ll Be Mine by Naina Kumar!
A quick summary courtesy of Penguin Random House…A teacher with big dreams joins forces with a no-nonsense engineer to survive an ex's wedding and escape matchmaking pressure from their Indian families. Their plan? Faking an engagement, of course. Say You’ll Be Mine is a delightful trip back to the heyday of swoony romantic comedies from the nineties, but with a deep and poignant look at the effects of culture and family in our most intimate relationships.
You can find a longer, more detailed description here.
Some romance tropes you’ll find in this book…
Fake Engagement
Grumpy x Sunshine
One Bed
You may remember that I ranked romance tropes last May, and fake dating/fake engagement is my least favorite (with the exception of accidental pregnancy, of course. That should really go without saying.) But grumpy x sunshine is my second favorite after enemies to lovers. And considering Say You’ll Be Mine is being billed as “the new When Harry Met Sally” by the marketing team pitching this book, my hopes are high. And I’m skeptical. Because to call something the new When Harry Met Sally feels almost unfair to any pice of work. Like…you’ve set the bar too high. I’ll report back with my thoughts.
Speaking of WHMS…how is it I learned JUST THIS WEEK that Nora Ephron’s son, Max Bernstein is a musician on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and her rerecordings? I really couldn’t love that family more.
A reminder that Reading Lately Book Club is now on IG! Follow and tag us if you’re reading along. And if you want to chat with fellow book club members in a spoiler free way, join us on fable.
Reading Lately
Closing out my January reads with two more thrillers for you…
First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston
I thoroughly enjoyed this Reese’s Book Club pick! Super twisty and unpredictable. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator did a fabulous job with the Southern accents. Really helped set the scene.
The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins
One of my favorite Rachel Hawkins books yet! Another tremendously unsettling mystery set in the South. Multiple POVs made this story unputdownable, though I did sort of guess the ending. Still worth a read.
Nowhere Like Home by Sara Shepard
I’m currently reading Sara Shepard’s soon to be released novel, Nowhere Like Home ahead of an event this weekend (which I’m so excited for because as a teen I was OBSESSED with the Pretty Little Liars books!) We weren’t told explicitly to read Nowhere Like Home — in fact they didn’t even give us copies; I already had one courtesy of NetGalley — but if it wasn’t wildly apparent by now, I love to assign myself reading like its homework. I was very good at homework.
The story follows a group of mothers living in a mysterious “mommune,” each of whom is running from… something. Dun dun dun! It’s rainy in LA today, so I think I’m going to take that as an opportunity to curl up with my kindle and knock it out!
I love your recommendations because many are outside my typical preferred genre (thriller with an unreliable woman narrator :) ) I've read a few more romance books per your recs!