This is what I want from romantic novels!

I really connected to Sam, his struggles and his personality and his love for all things classical Hollywood. His relationship with Paul was very recognizable and his romance with Finn was beautifully built up.

Reading this book felt like a warm hug - like a breath of fresh air. It was so nice to read a queer love story that was not YA, and that grappled with real questions of what community means and what it means to be oneself.

Omar, Glory, Kai and co were a delightful bunch of side characters and despite it being the soft, comforting world of a rom-com, it fely very real. Glory reminded me of a mix of the Golden Girls and the mum from Queer as Folk. I also really enjoyed the elements of craft and arts that queer communities can really thrive in.

Some might say this book does hit you over the head with social justice and queer activism but quite frankly, I think it's something we can and should revel in, especially now.

Thank you Hera and Netgalley for the digital ARC.

A quirky story about a man who has been lost in love and is now being guided by his mother. The premise here is kind of funny, but I’m left with the feeling that Sam really didn’t like himself and nothing in the plot made me understand him. I think I needed a little bit more of backstory?

I appreciated the author’s explanation of how difficult it can be to be confident in your artistic work. This felt like a message that would resonate with many.

I'd have stopped reading by the 6% mark if it weren't for my moral obligation to send a review. At that point, the main character changes his mind about working with the love interest in a matter of minutes, after kicking up a fuss about it, because... because the romance needed to happen, I suppose?

Don't get me wrong, the prose is competent and there are some genuinely profound quotes sprinkled throughout. For example, ‘Our connection is strong but not always deep, and there’s a difference’ at 54% really hit me, because it was an aspect of the MC and his mum's relationship that was perfectly captured in the story so far. It rang very true; and what an incredible display of maturity and self-awareness by the MC!

Another thing I enjoyed, but which unfortunately overlaps with my complaints, is the theme of queerness as a lifestyle and the influence of our being queer on our everyday lives. I found myself interested by the MC's take on this but couldn't let myself trust the book in its handling of the subject. By then, I had realised that despite the MC being 35 years old, this book had firmly claimed a parcel of the uninspired-YA territory and did not want to move beyond its borders.

Everything about this book reads YA-with-an-extra-100-pages, from the paint-by-numbers plot (nothing in there surprised me—nothing), to lowbrow comedy dialogue (‘poo-poo’ appears 4 times, ‘pooh’ twice), to general nonsense (‘this contract is legally binding’—excuse me?). I couldn't see the chemistry between the main character and love interest, I considered seppuku every time the mother appeared on page, the best friend was a no-personality prop to enable the mother's abuse, and the coffee-shop-found-family people were just brouhaha in the background. Having everyone behaving like a caricature of toddlers on cocaine is not my kind of humour, although I encounter it often enough to recognise there might be a market for it, somewhere.

It would be unfair of me to complain without explaining why this book did not work for me, so pardon me for the following list:

- The almost-good themes: What is queer culture and how much should it impact our existence? What parts of our identities let us claim what part of the culture? Where does our queerness's influence start and end in our lives, or does it truly seep into every aspect of our existence? Is it base animal behaviour to let our sexual preferences define who we are, or is it an unavoidable phenomenon born from the relief of finding a community you belong to while being a persecuted minority? You won't find answers to this in there. But we come close to a semblance of reflection on the matter through the MC's eyes. Throughout the novel, he has to challenge the views of his mother (her obsession with queer culture), the LI (whose entire raison d'être is queer-activism-or-die) and his ex (a traitor who attends hateful political events to eat canapés). By its end, the book doesn't really resolve any of these threads, doesn't really say who it agrees with, although it is implied the MC will have to be more politically involved considering the LI and mother are such great forces in his life. I was disappointed it didn't expand on the subject, and what was shown lacked finesse. The cishets don't plan their lives around the fact they're cishet, so the MC made great points... But the book commits to its brain-dead levity by having characters gaslight the MC, throw a joke then move on;

- The love interest: A lot of telling us he's the second coming of Jesus Christ without any showing. Art *is* activism by nature, so his one-chord opinion doesn't make him special. Girlie is not ending homophobia by walking around with an expensive camera (even during business meetings apparently!). I found his personality uninspiring and flat. I think this could have been helped if the MC and LI had actual deep conversations on the aforementioned themes, rather than a montage of quick comedy sketches. I reached my Ben-Affleck-stress-smoking era when they interviewed the ‘Russian immigrant’, what with the blatant clichés, broken English(!) and vapid activism;

- The best friend: That's classic YA and not really this book's fault, but the MC's best friend only served as a wall to bounce lines off of. His purpose was robotically telling the MC ‘you're so great’ and ‘your mum is right’ every time the MC looked in his general vicinity. He really didn't even do particularly well as the audience stand-in, considering his support of the mum;

- Which brings us to the worst character of the book. Intellectually, I understand she's supposed to be a Fran Fine type of mum—overbearing, overinvolved, messy but ultimately charming and loving. This did not translate on page at all. Her relentless commenting on her son's romantic and sexual life was creepy. Her co-opting her son's sexuality as her own was not okay (wanting to attend gay pride is cute, though she made it all about herself; wearing a ‘we're queer’ T-shirt? Not cute.) Her constant berating of her son's political involvement (or lack thereof), critiquing of everything he did, wore, said—the guilt-tripping, gaslighting, refusing any kind of talkback. The ‘I know what you feel/who you are better than you do’ subtext, using him as a complacent doll... All of this was horrific emotional abuse, and it's never properly addressed.

The book almost did something with it: why her thirty! five! years old! son! still lets her get away with it is masterfully explained (one of the things I enjoyed the most about this book). The MC has no self-esteem, he never had the chance to build it up—why bother having opinions of your own when your mother already has so many? Making his own choices isn't required per se, his mother has it handled! At one point, the MC challenges her: ‘You must really think I’m a loser’ because she can't trust him to do anything the way she wants him to do it and mercilessly micromanages him. However, she just strolls past the accusation, ‘That’s what mothers do.’ (no, it's not! it's really not!) and this never comes up again. I'd go so far as to say she's proved right at every turn, so much so that by the end of the novel, the happily ever after is really owed to her meddling. And none of that came at any cost, either, because her relationship with her son is intact and everyone absolutely loves her. Great.

The only character I found endearing was the MC. But the book was actively working against him and I couldn't sustain any interest for long. For all the good points he made, he still truly felt like a Victorian ingénue, showing an unfathomable lack of agency and willpower.

I chose to withhold this review from Goodreads for now, as there appears to be no other rating of the book on the platform yet and I wouldn't want to hurt its chances of finding its audience.

Ultimately, I just wanted this book to be something else. I am, however, intrigued by the author's brilliant nuggets of introspection through the MC, and will definitely check out their future work... My only hope is for the characters to be adults, for the comedy to be reasonable and for the problematic faves to be held accountable.

I just finished reading "My Mother’s Ridiculous Rules for Dating" by Philip William Stover and it was such a delightful read! The book was described as an uplifting fake dating, opposites attract rom-com, and it definitely lived up to that description.

The story follows Sam, a heartbroken writer who feels rejected and lost professionally. When his mother, Gloria, reminds him of a childhood bet that she made to oversee his love life if he's still single at 35, Sam reluctantly agrees to let her set him up with dates. Despite feeling uncertain about his mother's zany choices, Sam goes along with it.

Additionally, during this dating spree, Sam meets Finn, an artist with whom he collaborates for work. They hit it off instantly but also challenge each other, leading Sam to question his choices, self-identity, and beliefs.

The novel features an inclusive cast of characters and focuses on themes of growth, self-love, and finding one's family and voice. The humorous yet sincere approach made me eager to explore the author's other works. Overall, this book was a breath of fresh air in what can feel like a grim world.

I want to express my gratitude to NetGalley and Hera for providing me with the heartwarming ARC.