Tropes: Platonic co-parents to lovers (this is a new one and I want more!), slow burn, second chance romance, forced proximity, time limit, pregnancy (planned).

If you enjoyed Last Tang Standing, I really think you will want to pick this one up. In my opinion, Lucie Yi Is Not a Romantic is maybe even funnier and more chaotic. It really puts the comedy in rom-com! Seriously, at points I laughed loud enough that my partner's colleagues heard me via teams (thanks for that, home working!). Lauren Ho has such a strong writing voice - it makes you feel like you are watching a self-aware sitcom about characters you can't help but love, and I binge-read it within 24 hours.

Lucie Yi thinks she has everything she could want - a successful career, amazing apartment and amazing friends - until she starts crying in a baby store. She wants to be a parent, but she's single and does not want to raise a child on her own. She is introduced to a co-parent website (basically tinder for potential parents), meets Collin and decides to take the plunge. But when they move back to Singapore, a very pregnant Lucie has to deal with the judgement of her family, being snubbed for a promotion, an ex wanting to rekindle their romance and new, definitely not platonic, feelings for Collin. What will she choose? And will she be able to make this work?

I loved reading about Lucie, Collin and all of the secondary characters (especially her best friends - love a solid female friendship)! At times I was very frustrated by their indecision and lack of communication, but overall I really routed for all of their happiness. It was also interesting (and, to be honest, anxiety inducing) to read about the process of motherhood in Singapore. It is so different from the UK experience!

Overall, Lucie Yi definitely is romantic, and this book was a lot of fun to read. I would recommend picking it up when it is released on

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Lets meet th leading lady of this book who is Lucie Yi. Lucy is a successful 37 year old Singaporean management consultant who has been putting in all the hours in order to try and make partner. But Lucie has a can feel that her biological clock is ticking and is ticking loudly. A trip to a maternity store in Soho leads Lucie to make an unexpected emotional outburst that makes her question all of the things that she feels that she needs in life. Spurred on by her need to want to start a family she stumbles upon a co-parenting website and finds a potential father to her future babies.

Let's meet Collin. Collin is a half Malaysian and half Perenakan and a software engineer. He is also on the co-parenting website and him and Lucy decide that they would like to coparent together. At first they decide that they are going to use IVF to have the baby. But a trip to the fertility unit discovers that Lucie has very few eggs left and this means that they end up being in a physical relationship instead. Suddenly Lucy is pregnant and they decide to move to Singapore together to start their lives together with their growing baby.

⁣But all doesn't go quite as swimmingly as they had planned as Lucy's ex boyfriend arrives on the scene.

All in all this book wasnt really for me. I just didn't really enjoy it. But I thank you for the opportunity to read it.

Wowser this book was good. Unputdownable/ignoring my children good… Lucie approaches the realisation that she wants a baby in the same way she approaches life. With research, and analysis and data. Collin is such a great match and it’s amazing to see them try to find their feet as co-parents to an unborn baby. I loved that it was set in Singapore and that there were various cultural differences for Lucie and Collin to unpick and the addition of Mark made for quite the dilemma. It was genuinely a fabulous book, so well written and engaging. I shall be looking out for more books by Lauren Ho.

This was a quick, easy and fun read that was well written with a good plotline and well developed characters, although I found Lucie hard work sometimes and honestly went backwards and forwards between wanting to slap her and wanting to high five her..
It was such an enjoyable read and even when I hated Lucie I still loved the book.

Lucie Yi is a successful 37 year old Singaporean management consultant gunning to make partner. I had a few doubts about her professional portrayal, such as her specialising in tax structuring (is that management consulting? surely it’s tax advisory), regularly leaving the office before 8pm, working very uncollaboratively and referring to projects as ‘files’, but I recognise that was not the focus of the book. Lucie makes a trip to a chi chi maternity store in Soho, but the trip triggers an unexpected emotional outburst. Spurred on by her loudly ticking biological clock and the scars from the messy dissolution of her engagement, she experiments with a co-parenting website (think match.com but grown up) and finds a potential father. ⁣
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Collin is a half-Malaysian software engineer whose main flaws seem to be that he’s 5’8 (not 5’11 as he claims), and has severe health conditions which consist of lactose intolerance and a nut allergy. He’s also partially Peranakan, as is Lucie, which continues a trend of Peranakan fetishism in Singaporean literature (why?). They agree to platonically co-parent but inevitably are forced to have sex because Lucie has too few eggs to wait for IVF. Brought together by a love of puns and banter, sparks seem fly as Lucie gets pregnant and they move back to Singapore. ⁣
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Of course Lucie’s ex fiancé, a pretentious Singaporean man named Mark Thum, ruins the picture with his love for Tiffany photo frames, Le Creuset, going to therapy and banging his boss after Lucie had a miscarriage when they were engaged. Nonetheless she decides that he seems to be a safer bet, as supporting a child in Singapore is very expensive and she clearly comes from a disadvantaged background with parents who live in a multigenerational landed property in Serangoon. ⁣Meanwhile Collin rents an apartment in Bugis, which Lucie finds charming as it is both convenient but not excessively flashy. She continues to be attracted to Collin even as he dates a woman called Justine Maya, whilst Mark makes red date tea for her, which of course cancels out his toxic, controlling behaviour. Who will she chose???
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#LucieYiIsNotARomantic

Whilst the heroine could be annoying at times and you sometimes felt like giving her a good shacking, it was an enjoyable read nonetheless,, classic chicklit which is always welcome in these times

I haven’t read the previous book by the author so I went in blind here not knowing what to expect from the author.
I enjoyed the story overall to be honest but there are many moments, especially towards the end when it becomes annoying. Her indecisive thoughts and what she actually wants to do with her life, who to choose from both them, just didn’t work well with me. And I totally understand why she had all these feelings.
Was he my final choice as well as hers?
No, I just felt like maybe it would’ve been better to stay alone .

Some might hate this book, some might love it, but it’s a good story that needs reading nevertheless.

Very grateful to the publisher for my review copy

3.5 stars rounded to 4 stars