Book Review: Would Like To Meet by Rachel Winters

If there’s one thing I’m certain of during this weird time, it’s that I’ve been reading a lot. Before this, I used to work weekends and help mind my nephew a few days a week so – one way or another- I didn’t really have much time for reading. When all this Coronavirus madness started, I was furloughed by my job and suddenly had more time on my hands. At first it was easy to just sit, wallow over the situation and not do much. Then I realised how utterly boring it is to not keep busy so I dug out my Kindle, bought plenty of cheap titles and got reading.

One of the books I read was Would Like To Meet by Rachel Winters, which isn’t a book I’d heard of but I decided to give it a go as Kindle suggested I would like it. Turns out, they were right.

Blurb

Long suffering assistant Evie Summers will lose her job unless she can convince her film agency’s biggest and most difficult client, Ezra Chester, to finish the script for a Hollywood romcom. The catch? He hasn’t started writing it.

Suffering from “writers block”, he will only put pen to paper if singleton Evie can prove to him that you can fall in love like they do in the movies. Forget internet dating, Evie can only meet a man the way Harry met Sally, or Hugh Grant meets anyone. Cue her entering into one ridiculous romcom scenario after another. But can life ever be like the movies? Of course, real life isn’t that straightforward….

Review

The cover, though nicely illustrated, gave little away about the book or its plot.

Evie is working her socks off, she has been for years, to no avail. She’s attended to more of her boss, Monty’s Code Red notifications than anyone, and still nothing. Her drive to make it big is one of the things I liked about her character. Winters could’ve just had a character who coasted along in a job she didn’t really like but, in Evie, she gave us a character that was determined for bigger things. Of course, her dedication to her work takes its toll on her personal life (often in hilarious ways). It was quite refreshing to see a character that wasn’t on top of everything, because too often writers try to make characters be like that when – really- nobody is.

I liked the bringing together of the two characters, Evie and Ezra, it was a clever way to get the ball rolling. Of course, Ezra just has to be an arrogant but attractive arsehole type because – against better judgement- that’s exactly the character you eat up. He was annoying, self obsessed and incredibly stubborn – both in conversation and through the scattering of email correspondence throughout – and is the perfect alternative to our heroine. Even though his character lacked something else (turned out when you peeled back one layer of arsehole, you found yet another layer of arsehole), I think he was important in developing Evie’s character and the story as a whole.

I liked the concept of Evie trying to secure herself a Hollywood romance. I think, in an ideal world, anyone still single right now would much rather find their dream person in a meet-cute scenario than scrolling through an app (I know I would) but – for the moment- it was nice to live through her. The attempts were romantic, cheesy but – more often than not – unsuccessful. I think the fact that so many of the attempts backfired made it an entertaining read.

Another thing I liked was the backdrop of the hen do and wedding of Evie’s friend. In the background of securing Ezra’s movie script, and herself a better job, Evie has to deal with the demands and details of her friend Sarah’s hen do and eventual wedding. I liked the group chat element of it, full of panicked messages and updates, and the disaster of a hen do was quite funny as well.

One thing I wasn’t too keen on was the predictable nature of the book. I suppose, in a way, it echoed the Hollywood movies it was trying to recreate – as it became more cheesy and predictable as you read on. I liked the element of surprise and excitement the book had at first but, as I read on, it was so easy to guess what would happen next it took some of my excitement away.

Saying that, I liked the book overall. It was fun, a bit flirty and full of the Hollywood romance we all love …but only some of us admit it!

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Have you read this book? What did you think of it? Alternatively, what are you reading right now? I’d love to chat in the comments 😊.