The Dating Playbook, by Farrah Rochon

[sophia_sol]

A fake dating romance novel written by a competent writer, but I found it so uncomfortable to read that I nearly gave up on it multiple times. I liked both lead characters well enough, and some of the themes the book was addressing were good, but a lot of things about the book just did not work for me.

1. The friendship between Taylor and her female friends feels just lightly pasted into the book instead of feeling like I could believe in it and how important it is to Taylor. Plus, these two women she just met a few months ago are really her only friends??????? Don't like!


2. The reasons behind the fake-dating plot felt SO flimsy that I found every bit of it cringy


3. Taylor clearly has some kind of trauma reaction to school and testing, but she's able to just....get over it after there's sufficient on-page angst


4. Taylor's huge financial struggles just casually disappear partway through the book (even though her fees for training Jamar aren't enough to cover her credit card debt, much less pay her ongoing bills, and she still doesn't have a lot of other clients) and are never addressed again, as if it's not even a worry for her anymore


5. There are just so many points of conflict between Taylor and Jamar over the course of the book, despite them liking each other and being into each other, that it just wasn't fun to read about for me


6. A book about hardcore fitness routines and strict diets and football and the military is not a natural fit for me, and though I could have handled it if I really liked everything else about the book, there wasn't enough that I liked to distract me from these themes

This is a sequel to another romance novel by Rochon, The Boyfriend Project, and I feel very sure I read it (and didn't like it either) but I can find no evidence of this. It's not in my book reviews, it's not in my abandoned books doc, it's not in my library history.... why am I so confident I've read at least part of it?? This is very annoying, because if I knew I'd read both of Rochon's books so far and knew that both of them didn't suit my tastes at all, it would be easier to decide that Rochon's not for me and not bother picking up any future books of hers. But I don't know!

Comments

[lirazel]

he reasons behind the fake-dating plot felt SO flimsy that I found every bit of it cringy

Relatable. Not for this particular book, which I haven't read, but just in general. Your fake-dating reasons better be REALLY good or I will not go along with it.


Taylor's huge financial struggles just casually disappear partway through the book

This would drive me crazy.

[sophia_sol]

I'm pretty sure I have more patience with silly fake dating reasons than the average person, as I do really enjoy the trope, but I think that makes me all the more annoyed when an author fails to meet even my relatively low bar on this front!

[lirazel]

My bar is decently low in fanfic, but in actual published stuff or romcoms...I need it to believable.

[sophia_sol]

oh very fair!

[thedarlingone]

"Plus, these two women she just met a few months ago are really her only friends??????? Don't like!"

Like obviously I haven't read the book, but just speaking as someone who's always been sort of on the periphery of female friendships for obvious reasons, this seems like... super unrealistic to the point of bad writing. Like that's one of the things that's gotten to me the most when I've been in a bad headspace -- that people who are women all the time and autistic none of the time seem to be so *consistently* like "yes this is my bff from third grade, and that's her cousin, and this is my aunt's second husband's neice (niece? christ, you can tell i'm in really crappy shape right now because i legitimately do not know which of these is correct O_O), and of course we all hang out together on alternate Wednesdays for brunch" or whatever. Like maybe that's just me but you know what I mean?

[sophia_sol]

I mean, I think there are NT women out there like this who exist without those long histories of friendships? But like, it would be something she would know and notice as a problem in her life, I'm pretty sure! So yeah the way it's portrayed in this book just feels off.