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The Dating Playbook, by Farrah Rochon
Dec. 9th, 2021 08:55 pmA 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.
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!
- 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!
- The reasons behind the fake-dating plot felt SO flimsy that I found every bit of it cringy
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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!
