Title: The Rom-CommersAuthor: Katherine Center
Pages: 336
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Genres: Fiction / Romance / Contemporary
Synopsis:
She’s rewriting his love story. But can she rewrite her own?
Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies—good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates—The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!—it’s a break too big to pass up.
Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone—much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.” Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesn’t even care about the script—it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme.
But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matter—even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules—and comes true?
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I have mixed feelings about this book. I went into the story thinking it would be similar in tone and emotion to the other books I’ve read by Center, but boy, was I wrong. This story packs an emotional punch and explores topics like grief, cancer, caretaking, illness, divorce, and more. Overall, it has a lot of fun and uplifting parts, but the story definitely has some more serious and heartbreaking moments. I didn’t expect it to be as emotional as it was, and I would strongly suggest checking out the content warnings before reading.
The main characters are not my favorite either. Emma is a major fangirl, but some of the things she does border on harassment, like her foiled attempts to kiss and have sex with Charlie – super awkward and uncomfortable. Though he gives mixed signals, Charlie explicitly rejects Emma multiple times, and yet she still persists. It made me dislike her character. There was also a scene with her sister where Emma says some really hurtful things that feel uncalled for. In the heat of the moment when they were both so emotional, it’s clear they didn’t mean what they said, but the entire cruel conversation didn’t align with their relationship dynamics and felt totally out of left field.
And I wanted to love Charlie! He has so many wonderful qualities, and he’s definitely a layered character, but the meanness behind some of his comments and actions are as cringy as his arrogance. Charlie says a lot of disrespectful and hurtful things behind Emma’s back, which made me really dislike him. I think he and Emma are kind of immature, and there’s a lot of miscommunication, lying, and talking behind people’s backs, and I just couldn’t get behind it. On the other hand, they have fabulous banter, and Charlie does many lovely things, simple and big gestures, that show how deeply he really feels for Emma.
Other elements I enjoyed include Emma’s relationship with her father and sister (minus that one hurtful scene), the clever banter and dialogue, and the author’s writing style. Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a copy of the book. All thoughts are my own.
BookPage calls Katherine Center “the reigning queen of comfort reads.” She’s the New York Times bestselling author of ten books, including The Bodyguard, How to Walk Away, and Things You Save in a Fire. Her summer newest book is Hello Stranger—and her forthcoming one is The Rom-Commers (June 11,2024). Katherine’s novel Happiness for Beginners just opened as a Netflix original movie (starring Ellie Kemper and Luke Grimes), and the movie adaptation of her novel The Lost Husband (starring Josh Duhamel) hit #1 on Netflix in 2020. Katherine writes deep, laugh-and-cry rom-coms about how life knocks us down—and how we get back up. She’s been compared to both Jane Austen and Nora Ephron, and the Dallas Morning News calls her stories, “satisfying in the most soul-nourishing way.” Her books have made countless Best-Of lists, including the LibraryReads Hall of Fame, Goodreads’ Best Books of the Year, the Indie Next Great Reads List, and many more. Katherine lives in her hometown of Houston, Texas, with her husband, two kids, and their fluffy-but-fierce dog.
I just finished listening to this one and definitely enjoyed it more than you did. You made some good points, though.
Thanks, Carla! Glad you enjoyed it a little more than I did.
Great review! I’m with you. Wasn’t as big of a fan as everyone else seems to be.
I usually love her books, so I was kind of surprised I didn’t like this one more. 🙁