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A review by abbyyy113
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
5.0
THE BEST ROMANTIC COMEDY I HAVE EVER READ!! (This is going to be long and I am not sorry)
I was nervous for this book because 1) I’m not into workplace romance; 2) I don’t particularly love books that take place in cities and the main characters live and work in NYC; and 3) I read beach read and people we meet on vacation and LOVED them and I was nervous my expectations would be too high.
All of the characters in this book are so well fleshed out, and they are NORMAL AND MATURE ADULTS!! (No miscommunication trope here). Not a single ex-lover was painted as a shitty person, but instead it recognized that not everybody is “meant to be” and that love alone is not always enough to make a relationship work. Everybody got their happy ending <3
Book Lovers is a love letter to all of the romance novels that came before it, making the genre what it is. Every cliché small-town Hallmark movie trope occurs, but it’s so self-aware and done so well that it never feels cheesy or redundant.
Emily Henry is a master at witty banter, this book had me laughing out loud the entire time.
I appreciate how Book Lovers diverts from the common and sometimes damaging tropes centered around femininity, masculinity, and gender roles. Emily Henry said it best: “It’s an ode to all the women wearing heels at their treadmill desks and barking orders into phones, while angrily eating giant take-out salads. It’s about a woman, really just trying to do her job, and how the world reacts to that. It’s about a man who loves living in New York City and has no interest in learning how to build furniture.”
I love how it celebrates Nora being career-oriented, and just as wholly celebrates Libby and her motherhood. It shows that sometimes you can have BOTH and that women shouldn’t be expected to sacrifice everything to have one or the other. It’s also so refreshing to FINALLY read a romance novel where the woman isn’t teeny-tiny and the man isn’t ginormous (please dear god I am so sick of that trope. Why does the woman always have to be 5’2 and petite and the man is always like 6’6 and sculpted like a Greek god? Jeez).
To say the least, I recommend this book with my whole entire heart. If you want to read it though, maybe read a few contemporary romance BEFORE this one because I feel like now every romance novel I read after this will disappoint me because genuinely nothing can compare.
I was nervous for this book because 1) I’m not into workplace romance; 2) I don’t particularly love books that take place in cities and the main characters live and work in NYC; and 3) I read beach read and people we meet on vacation and LOVED them and I was nervous my expectations would be too high.
All of the characters in this book are so well fleshed out, and they are NORMAL AND MATURE ADULTS!! (No miscommunication trope here). Not a single ex-lover was painted as a shitty person, but instead it recognized that not everybody is “meant to be” and that love alone is not always enough to make a relationship work. Everybody got their happy ending <3
Book Lovers is a love letter to all of the romance novels that came before it, making the genre what it is. Every cliché small-town Hallmark movie trope occurs, but it’s so self-aware and done so well that it never feels cheesy or redundant.
Emily Henry is a master at witty banter, this book had me laughing out loud the entire time.
I appreciate how Book Lovers diverts from the common and sometimes damaging tropes centered around femininity, masculinity, and gender roles. Emily Henry said it best: “It’s an ode to all the women wearing heels at their treadmill desks and barking orders into phones, while angrily eating giant take-out salads. It’s about a woman, really just trying to do her job, and how the world reacts to that. It’s about a man who loves living in New York City and has no interest in learning how to build furniture.”
I love how it celebrates Nora being career-oriented, and just as wholly celebrates Libby and her motherhood. It shows that sometimes you can have BOTH and that women shouldn’t be expected to sacrifice everything to have one or the other. It’s also so refreshing to FINALLY read a romance novel where the woman isn’t teeny-tiny and the man isn’t ginormous (please dear god I am so sick of that trope. Why does the woman always have to be 5’2 and petite and the man is always like 6’6 and sculpted like a Greek god? Jeez).
To say the least, I recommend this book with my whole entire heart. If you want to read it though, maybe read a few contemporary romance BEFORE this one because I feel like now every romance novel I read after this will disappoint me because genuinely nothing can compare.