Author: Rachel Winters
Year of release: 2019
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group/ Hachette Australia
Genre: General Fiction, Woman’s Fiction, Chick-Lit
Release date: 23rd July 2019
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟
Synopsis:
In this charming, feel-good debut novel, a cynical assistant at a screenwriting agency must re-enact the meet-cute scenes from classic romantic comedy movies in order to help her #1 client get his scriptwriting mojo back–but can a real-life meet-cute be in store for someone who doesn’t believe in happily ever after?
After seven years as an assistant, 29-year-old Evie Summers is ready to finally get the promotion she deserves. But now the TV and film agency she’s been running behind the scenes is in trouble, and Evie will lose her job unless she can convince the agency’s biggest and most arrogant client, Ezra Chester, to finish writing the script for a Hollywood romantic comedy.
The catch? Ezra is suffering from writer’s block–and he’ll only put pen to paper if singleton Evie can prove to him that you can fall in love like they do in the movies. With the future of the agency in jeopardy, Evie embarks on a mission to meet a man the way Sally met Harry or Hugh Grant met Julia Roberts.
But in the course of testing out the meet-cute scenes from classic romantic comedies IRL, not only will Evie encounter one humiliating situation after another, but she’ll have to confront the romantic past that soured her on love. In a novel as hilarious as it is heartwarming, debut author Rachel Winters proves that sometimes real life is better than the movies–and that the best kind of meet-cutes happen when you least expect them
Meaning of meet-cute in English:
(in a film or television programme) an amusing or charming first encounter between two characters that leads to the development of a romantic relationship between them.
Review
29-year-old Evie Summers is busy running the TV and film agency she works for, albeit behind the scenes as her boss of 7 years Monty just hasn’t noticed how much more Evie his assistant is capable of, she has become a joke to her fellow peers and she knows it no one stays as an assistant in the industry that long.
When the agency is found to be in trouble this means one thing for Evie…. Trouble! if the agency closes any hope Evie ever has of getting that promotion to Agent is headed straight down the toilet and fast until Evie learns that there might be a way to save both the agency and finally get that promotion she jumps at the chance, until she learns that her fate lies in the hands of an good looking but arrogant screenwriter who happens to have writers block. Evie can do this right? With the help of old and new friends and Rom-Coms Evie is about to find out the meet cute is harder then it looks.
The concept of this book had me eager to read.
The first half of this book had me falling head over heels for the concept I couldn’t put it down, thanks to the authors comedic timing in the writing. I found because of this the Would Like to Meet was able to put a smile on my face at different times throughout the story this is rare that this happens to me in this genre.
Evie and I share a love of this particular genre of film and I found myself cheering her on, I loved that these characters and the situations they were placed in were realistic and enjoyable when it comes to the characters and their interactions in the beginning.
“…Keep all the flowers and the heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. When a man comes over to unblock your toilet, that’s romance.”
― Rachel Winters Would Like to Meet
I can’t say I enjoyed Ben throughout this book (Yes I understand how the Rom-Com recipe works nice guy wins, but I just couldn’t buy into it here), I preferred Ezra type for once.
Upon reaching the second half I found however the first half of the story was much more enjoyable, I felt like Evie had become a completely different person a little self-centred, I also felt as if the events that take place in the second half were a tiny bit of a filler and unbelievable that they even took place in the first place, as there was no set-up in the story and made the story drag on for me. As for the events in the second half , I found it hard to look past them and buy into this new and improved versions of the characters I now come to know, our attention gets shifted towards a minor character, this was a little confusing given the events of the first half.
Anyone looking for a feel good read to pass the time in self isolation should find: Would Like to Meet a good distraction, if you like a feel good Chick-Lit, Woman’s Fiction grab a copy.