You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle

Rating: ⭐⭐

Read if You Like: A change from the usual Boy-Meets-Girl romance novel, childish pranks, falling out of and back into love

Reading Goal: 7/100

Naomi and Nicolas have the perfect relationship. Or, at least, that's what Naomi's Instagram feed would lead you to believe. In reality, perfect is far from the truth. As their wedding date looms closer, Naomi finds that she is absolutely sick of her fiancé. Naomi wants out of the wedding, but knows that if she ends the engagement, she will have to pay for the non-refundable nuptials she (or rather, her mother-in-law) has planned. When Naomi learns that Nicolas is also harboring doubts, the two of them begin trying to push the other one to call it off by any means possible-- pranks, sabotage, mind games, you name it! Somewhere within the hostility Naomi and Nicolas start to find that they are having fun together, and realize maybe they still love each other after all.

I was drawn in by the concept of You Deserve Each Other because I liked that it veered away from the normal story line of a romance novel-- you know, boy meets girl, they fall in love, its cute and sappy and they live happily ever after. Tale as old as time and all that. Hogle turns that on its head and explores what happens after the big romantic gesture when the ever after isn't so happy. Turns out, I like the happy. Its really the only reason I read these books, I guess. Sure the last third of this book is sweet, and Hogles quippy, fun writing style lends itself to the romance genre well, but overall this was not my favorite read.

I think the reason why I didn't enjoy it was that I struggled to care about the characters. Naomi and Nicolas were both whiny and vindictive, and they treated each other terribly for most of the book over issues that could've been resolved if they would've just talked to each other. As a reader, likeable, or at least well developed, characters are what make or break books for me. Who needs plot? If I like a character, I would read about them doing anything. And if I don't, I will turn the audio book speed up so that I can get through it faster, which is what I did this time. I think I wanted more about Naomi and Nicolas’ story before the book starts. We don't really get a lot of information about their relationship prior to their engagement, so all I knew about them is that they absolutely hate each other, and didn't have a clue as to why they even fell in love in the first place. For most of the book, I really just wanted them to break up, which is not what I want out of my romance escapism reads. Maybe this is just not a trope for me, because I did really like Hogle's voice and I wanted to enjoy this book so bad. It was not my cup of tea, but I'll likely check out Hogle's other works in the future.