A review by mardell
Love at First Set by Jennifer Dugan

3.0

Woo this one is a true rom-com ride with heaps of secrets, overly-elaborate schemes, and some winsomely selfish people. Jennifer Dugan's writing suits this style of romance perfectly. I'm not a fast reader and I still zipped through this one with ease. The question of whether Love At First Set clicks for readers will be down to two things: your tolerance for said stratagems AND your tolerance for the Manderleys, the rich family who dominate our main character's life. Because none of the chaos is generated by our dear Lizzie, an eminently likeable Everywoman who is massively underappreciated at work - the book's main stage, the gym - and at home. (Though thankfully she is not literally at home as her mother is toxic as hell.) Her main faults, if faults they be, are immediately crushing on the completely gorgeous Cara, Manderley progeny #1, and having very little sense of self worth - which is hardly surprising given the feedback she's got from the world so far. Both of these factors are exploited by James, Manderley progeny #2 and her alleged best friend/queer found family, in a way that pissed me off throughout. Add in that Lizzie works at a gym owned by Cara and James's parents, and we have a rich girl/poor girl romance with a pretty steep power difference that neither sibling seems to fully grasp. Cara grows into the more sympathetic sibling, and her blossoming romance with Lizzie in the second half is cute - but I had to use that heart-eye energy to forget her underexplained and unacceptable behaviour in the first half. (Hello, hacking someone's phone and changing all their settings?) To balance the scales, I would love to have seen Lizzie enlist allies that weren't Manderleys. Instead, her isolation is what turns a flawed character like James into a plot flaw (and a book goes from 4 to 3 stars) because the author has chosen to leave Lizzie in a compromised position throughout the book. Still, this is a quick-fire fun read with plenty of sapphic-friendly gym scenes.