Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Weather Girl

Reviews tagging Toxic relationship

Weather Girl, by Rachel Lynn Solomon

11 reviews

kelly_e's review against another edition

hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Title: Weather Girl
Author: Rachel Lynn Solomon
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Rating: 3.0
Pub Date: January 11, 2022

T H R E E • W O R D S

Cozy • Feel-Good • Predictable

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Ari has always been fascinated by the weather, so working as a TV meteorologist is like living the dream. Unfortunately for Ari, her boss, the legendary Torrance Hale, is too preoccupied to mentor her properly. Russel, the sports report seems to be the only one who understands how she feels.

Following a disastrous holiday party, Ari and Russell team up to solve their bosses’ relationship issues. Between secret gifts and double dates, they start nudging their bosses back together. But their well-meaning meddling backfires when the real chemistry builds between Ari and Russell.

💭 T H O U G H T S

Weather Girl was one of my most anticipated releases of 2022, given the sweet premise and knowing there would be a mental health aspect. To say my hopes were high would definitely be an understatement. And unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations.

What I like:
• the representation. This book has excellent representation of mental illness, plus size portrayal, single parent, and a Jewish main character.
• the unique jobs. I loved that Rachel used such unique jobs as the basis for the story. An added bonus that the idea of a romance between a weather girl and a sportscaster seems fitting.
• the cover. Probably one of my favourite covers of the year.

What I didn't like:
• the romance. I get the romance isn't meant to be the main focus, yet the chemistry between the two main characters didn't feel all that believable.
• underdeveloped plot points. Some aspects of the plot were just left unexplored, which didn't feel quite right, even though this book already tackles a lot.

At the end of the day this was quick read with a cute plot, yet could have been better. For me, there was just something missing or maybe it's the fact it tried to do too much opposed to focusing on developing several aspects more broadly. I'm still glad I read it for the living with function depression aspect alone.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• fans of The Ex Talk
• readers looking for mental illness representation

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"The people who love us the most have the power to hurt us the most, too."

"If anything could confirm that weather isn’t small talk, it’s this. Weather connects us. A shared experience, even when we aren’t in the same place."

Content Warnings

rachaelm13's review

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challenging emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

LOVED this book. The characters are so lovable and REAL. It felt like a romance than could actually happen in real life.

Loved all the representation in this book!

This first spicy scene was one of the best I’ve read, it was spicy but also so meaningful and like caring/emotional/ meant something, I don’t know how to describe it. I’m a sucker for consent consent consent so that scene was everything.

The second spicy scene was a bit underwhelming and short/not very descriptive and I found the whole book to be a bit this way. There were some scenes I didn’t want to leave yet and wanted to stay in that moment for longer with the characters with more description. The book tops out at 292 pages and I would haves loved to read another 30-50+ more pages just for more depth/descriptions/detail but it was still fantastic as is!

Content Warnings

kb33's review

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emotional lighthearted medium-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

A love story with very real characters with real life issues, including depression. I’ve recently discovered Solomon, and I can’t wait to read more.

Content Warnings

brokenbodybitch's review against another edition

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emotional funny medium-paced

4.75

Proper review to come (yay pain flares) but I really like Rachel and can't wait to read more, here are some of my thoughts;

was that a Halestorm reference!!!(like last half hour)
the depression rep......Rachel needs to get out of my head, especially after 'we cant keep meeting like this' it's wild! WCKMLT was the first book with ocd rep after my diagnosis and damn...and then I had a breakdown and happened to get this delivered in libby and was like eh cute cover sure and now I NEED to annotate these because of the accuracy
too many millennial jokes for my taste. Lots of *we killed x industry* jokes 🥴
I enjoy how you get to see her in therapy and therapy talked about so much; generally enjoyed the mental health rep in this book. Discussions of meds and therapy and pros/cons/fears/lots of good angles and talks
I like the relationships between all the characters and the side characters are just as good; the daughter, her mom, and the bosses especially and her brother sometimes actually
the relationship itself was kinda secondary (there is spice but like not a main point at all) so if you just want romance/spice maybe pass BUT def add to your tbr
her little weather accessories is adorable I love little things like that
genuinely need to get this and annotate it just damn....

Rep (some but I may/prob missed some of the representation and if there is no tag its a general theme throughout the book):
Depression [clinical depression, therapy, medication], Anxiety, Jewish Rep, Plus size Rep-LI, Single parent- LI, Teen Parent- LI

Tropes:
single parent, meteorologist/sports reporter, parent trapped inspired friends to lovers, co workers

(its 4am I need to sleep)

update: honestly this is good enough i am not writing this into a paragraph.

Content Warnings

foldingthepage_kayleigh's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

So cute! Loved this much more than The Ex Talk. This one was fun, whimsical, and dealt with mental health in a way that felt realistic, since the author herself experiences depression and was able to pull on to show all different sorts of ways that depression manifests. Overall, this was such a sweet and tender tale, 100% would recommend if you’re looking for:

A lighthearted romance with substance
Jewish rep
“Parent Trap”-esque plots

Content Warnings

martachbc's review

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emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

3.75

Solomon has carved herself a nice little niche of Seattle-based, media-centric workplace romances. The Ex Talk focused on radio, and with Weather Girl, we move into the exciting world of local news.

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕡𝕝𝕠𝕥:: Ari Abrams is a weather girl who tries to prevent anything from raining on her parade. Her always-cheerful attitude resulted in her being dumped for not being real enough, but it helps her survive her toxic workplace, where her two bosses, who happened to be exes, are constantly at each other’s throats. She teams up with sportscaster Russell to reunite the wayward lovers in the hopes of making their professional lives better. But when she starts spending more time with Russell, she starts to wonder if romance might be in the cards for her too.

𝕄𝕪 𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤: Don’t hate me for saying this, but Weather Girl just fell a little flat for me! I think I struggled to buy the extremely unprofessional Parent Trap-ping of the bosses - normally I can overlook goofy plotlines in a romance, but it didn’t click for me.

Overall everything just seemed a little nice but a little lackluster. It’s weird because that’s exactly what I did like about two other recent reads, The Suite Spot and Lease on Love. But I never felt drawn to pick up this book - I was mostly reading it just to get through it.

I really do appreciate that Solomon brought into the mix a few elements we don’t often see in romance: depression (because it’s not sexy but it’s real!) and a male lead who wasn’t carved out of marble and who has his own body issues. Normalize it all! I think Solomon does a great job of normalizing these diverse elements without making it *the* story.

I would describe this as a good spring romance. It’s not necessarily a beach read, it’s not the most fun thing in the world, but it works well for a rainy day. Fittingly, I guess!

Content Warnings