Audio book length: 11 hrs 23 mins
Rating: 5 stars
CBR16 Sweet Books: Exciting
Daphne used to have the perfect life. Working as a children's librarian, living in a beautiful house with her fiancée Peter, Then, returning from his bachelor party, a shame-faced Peter confesses that he is in fact in love with his best friend Petra, and Daphne has one week to move all her things out of the house (which is owned entirely by Peter). Concluding that Petra's equally dumped boyfriend Miles probably has some free space in his flat, Daphne moves in with him and begins her mental countdown for when she can get out of town. She's not willing to leave until she's pulled up her big end-of-summer Read-a-thon at the library, but she also can't bear the thought of staying in Waning Bay any longer than necessary - forced to witness Peter's new happiness with Petra.
After having to be told off from smoking weed in their shared apartment to dull his heartbreak, Miles turns out to be a pretty great roommate. They barely see each other, and Miles clearly doesn't seem to understand Daphne's need to map out her entire life on a whiteboard wall calendar. He's also the only one who can truly understand how sucky this whole situation is for Daphne. When they receive wedding invitations to Petra and Peter's wedding, they decide that the only thing to do is to get blind drunk. Their night of drunkenness leads to Daphne accepting the wedding invite, and complicating the situation further by telling Peter that Miles is, in fact, her plus one to the wedding, what with them dating now (he calls to reassure her that she doesn't need to come to the wedding if it'll be too painful).
During their drunken night out, Miles also discovers that Daphne is mentally counting down to leave town. He decides to be her tour guide and show her all the awesome things the town and surrounding area have to offer since he doesn't think she should have to uproot herself entirely just because Peter and Petra turned out to be selfish homewreckers. They post some pictures on social media to make their lie about dating one another more believable, and since Waning Bay isn't a very big place, soon most of the residents think they're a couple.
As their friendship develops and their exes' wedding comes closer, Miles' plan to make Daphne appreciate her new hometown appears to be working. As they spend more time together, they also appear to be falling for one another. But falling in love with her ex-fiancée's new fiancée's ex-boyfriend can't possibly end well?
This is Emily Henry's fifth romance for an adult audience (I've still only read one of her YA books) and while I suspect Book Lovers is still my favourite, this is certainly a close second. I loved it so much that only weeks after finishing it, I got the audio book (as always excellently narrated by Julia Whelan) to re-read it. There are so many things I love about it, but the protagonists are probably on the top of the list.
Daphne is a wonderful heroine, especially because she's by no means perfect. Having never been able to rely on her father, she and her mother have always been all the more close-knit. Unfortunately, to be able to support them, Daphne's mother had to move around a lot as she got promoted into bigger and better positions. Daphne never really had time to make lasting friends and learned not to get too attached to any of the places they lived. When meeting Peter, she allows herself to start dreaming of a lasting home but also works very hard to be his perfect partner. They spend their spare time doing the things he enjoys, socialising with his friends, eating the food he prefers. Because of this, Daphne is even more adrift when she is dumped shortly before their wedding - she hasn't really thought about what she wants and enjoys. One of the things she also has to completely reassess is her impression of Miles.
So much of Daphne's impressions come from Peter, who has clearly been both very vocal in his disapproval of Miles, and very restrictive about what parts of the town he has chosen to share with Daphne. She would not be so amazed at all the new places in the town and surrounding area if she'd been encouraged to explore more while she was with Peter, and she wouldn't feel so alone and alienated, desperate to get out of there either.
While Book Lovers is probably still my most favourite, Miles is absolutely my favourite Emily Henry romance hero. He reminds me a lot of Levi from Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, and that is NOT a bad thing. Levi is one of the swooniest characters ever. Miles' cheerful and outgoing nature, his friendliness and positive attitude (almost toxic positivity as we discover later), and the way everyone can't help but fall a little bit in love with him - very Levi. Miles has a lot more self-doubt and angst, though, and Petra choosing Peter over him certainly doesn't help.
One of the many things I love about him is the way he's there for his sister Julia and I'm glad they finally talk through their issues in the end, so he can forgive himself for his believed abandonment of her in her childhood and allow her to care for him as much as he cares for her. Julia is one of the very enjoyable supporting characters, even though she also appears to be chaos in human form. The other really great supporting character that really adds to the excellence of the book is Ashley, Daphne's fellow librarian, a seemingly grouchy single mother who unlike Daphne (who seems to want to avoid anything uncomfortable and confrontational) is unafraid to tell people exactly what she thinks. Having moved around so much growing up, it's quite clear that Daphne has barely managed to make any lasting friends, so the new connections she makes with Miles, Julia and Ashley are all significant.
It's not like we get to know Peter much before he shows up and crushes our Daphne's heart. He really is a self-centred, stuck-up idiot. He eventually explains why he acted the way he did by replacing Daphne with Petra, and the whole thing is just laughable. The fact that he assumes that there is a chance he could be forgiven and that Daphne would take him back - the audacity! Even if Daphne hadn't found someone much better and more deserving of her in Miles, she would be absolutely insane to take him back after the things he put her through. Petra seems pretty bad as well, but she also seems to have fallen victim to Peter's desperate attempts to have his cake and eat it too. Both of them and their well-meaning, but clearly secretly judgemental families can go to the devil.
This is absolutely delightful and exceeded my already high expectations. By now, Henry is not only an auto-buy author for me, I pre-order her books months in advance. I own all of her romances in paperback and have acquired most of them in audio as well (I love re-reading books through audio). Now I just have to see what she comes up with next.
Judging a book by its cover: The cover shows Daphne and Miles drowning their sorrows at a local bar, and the postures of both of them are so well-done. While cartoony, they really capture the essences of the characters. Cover Miles is even wearing crocs.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read.
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