A light, quirky romance; the body-swap premise provides plenty of fuel for witty one-liners and emotional reckoning.
In Ready’s novel, when a would-be couple decides that they’re just too different to be together, the universe itself forces them to consider another perspective.
In the second installment of the Ghosted series, the author introduces Serena Otaki, who lives a chaotically wonderful life working at the Large Hadron Collider on the border of Switzerland and France while remaining unapologetically single (her true love is physics). But then she meets Henry Joule, a conventional Brit who looks forward to settling down. While their chemistry is palpable, Serena breaks things off after one passionate night together when she makes two horrifying realizations: She’s falling in love with him, and Henry is her new boss. Over a year later, Serena and Henry have settled into largely avoiding each other at work, until one stormy night when lightning strikes the control room and the two experience a cosmic event that somehow makes them swap bodies. From there, plenty of surprises and misunderstandings ensue. After the vegetarian Serena refuses to eat the meat that Henry loves so much (“Eat the sausage. I don’t want to be anemic when I get my body back”) and Henry discovers the wonders of female biology (“Henry is about to experience all the wonderful joys of my menstrual cycle. It should hit tomorrow or the next day, right after he’s had a crying jag, a load of cramps, bloating, and extreme cravings for peanut butter and chocolate”), their squabbling eventually turns into a mutual understanding that paves the way for them to do what they were meant to do the whole time: fall in love.
Serena narrates the vast majority of the novel in a voice that’s warm and funny, often directly addressing the reader. This is an unusual stylistic choice and one that the author pulls off with aplomb. The romance portion of the novel leans more heavily toward the sweet than the sexy, with some cutaway love scenes and one hilarious discussion about erections. From the opening line, when Serena declares that she’s “always believed that things are only impossible until they’re not. For instance: particle physics, space travel, and sex on a tree branch,” readers are given fair warning that the characters (and the plot itself) are filled with whimsy. That’s not to say that Ready doesn’t deliver some emotional punches along the way. As they’re forced to deal with each other’s major family events—including Serena’s mother’s emergency coronary bypass surgery and Henry’s brother’s wedding—the body swap compels them to finally talk to each other in an authentic, profound way. That’s when the novel moves beyond easy physical humor and into an insightful commentary on the impossibility of having it all: “I love too much. I only have room for one great love in my life. I’ve already chosen it. I don’t want to lose my dreams. I don’t want to lose everything for love.” This connection is only deepened when Serena and Henry begin getting flashes of each other’s memories, a phenomenon that urges them to have a reluctant conversation about how they want to move forward if they can’t actually find a way to swap bodies back.
A light, quirky romance; the body-swap premise provides plenty of fuel for witty one-liners and emotional reckoning.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9781954007703
Page Count: 328
Publisher: W.W. Crown
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fresh and upbeat, though not without flaws.
An earnest grad student and a faculty member with a bit of a jerkish reputation concoct a fake dating scheme in this nerdy, STEM-filled contemporary romance.
Olive Smith and professor Adam Carlsen first met in the bathroom of Adam's lab. Olive wore expired contact lenses, reducing her eyes to temporary tears, while Adam just needed to dispose of a solution. It's a memory that only one of them has held onto. Now, nearly three years later, Olive is fully committed to her research in pancreatic cancer at Stanford University's biology department. As a faculty member, Adam's reputation precedes him, since he's made many students cry or drop their programs entirely with his bluntness. When Olive needs her best friend, Anh, to think she's dating someone so Anh will feel more comfortable getting involved with Olive's barely-an-ex, Jeremy, she impulsively kisses Adam, who happens to be standing there when Anh walks by. But rumors start to spread, and the one-time kiss morphs into a fake relationship, especially as Adam sees there's a benefit for him. The university is withholding funds for Adam's research out of fear that he'll leave for a better position elsewhere. If he puts down more roots by getting involved with someone, his research funds could be released at the next budgeting meeting in about a month's time. After setting a few ground rules, Adam and Olive agree that come the end of September, they'll part ways, having gotten what they need from their arrangement. Hazelwood has a keen understanding of romance tropes and puts them to good use—in addition to fake dating, Olive and Adam are an opposites-attract pairing with their sunny and grumpy personalities—but there are a couple of weaknesses in this debut novel. Hazelwood manages to sidestep a lot of the complicated power dynamics of a student-faculty romance by putting Olive and Adam in different departments, but the impetus for their fake relationship has much higher stakes for Adam. Olive does reap the benefits of dating a faculty member, but in the end, she's still the one seemingly punished or taunted by her colleagues; readers may have been hoping for a more subversive twist. For a first novel, there's plenty of shine here, with clear signs that Hazelwood feels completely comfortable with happily-ever-afters.
Fresh and upbeat, though not without flaws.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-33682-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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