Sarah Hogle

I checked out this book because second-chance romances, especially when the couples are still married/together, is quickly becoming one of my favorite tropes. So, I was excited for a funny lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers story. But this book turned out to be so much more than that.

Look, I purposely avoid books that make me feel complicated feelings. I feel complicated feelings all the time; why would I want to do that for fun? No thanks. Leave the complicated feelings to the characters, while I show more feel simple things, like, wow! those words are pretty or cool! that honey-badger shifter just killed SO MANY henchmen. But, this book made me feel complicated feelings, and I liked it (?) I don't know. I'm not going to do it again (on purpose, anyways), but I'm really glad I accidentally did this time.

So much of what Naomi felt, thought, experienced was so familiar. This was such an unflinching, but still compassionate, look at what anxiety and depression can do to a long-term relationship. I'm talking disassociation (and memory loss), focusing on your own unhappiness so much that it never occurs to you that the other person could also be unhappy, taking acts of kindness for granted and never even thinking about returning them, mourning the relationship before it's even over. You know, all the greatest hits. But the ending is so hopeful, if maybe a little easy. But again, I don't normally read books for sad realism, so that doesn't bother me so much.

But I've read plenty of books where the characters felt things that were familiar to me. What took this to that next level of feeling those feelings myself has to be Sarah Hogle's achingly beautiful prose.

Someday, for some woman, he'll feel like parting the curtains in an upper window, dust motes swirling in a sunny room, peering down on the curving back of a man building your children a swing set. He'll be thick wedding band of solid silver, the only place on his hand that doesn't tan in the summer. He'll feel like two old trees growing together, branches plaiting into an old embrace.

Just a perfect way to convey how sadly, sweetly devastated Naomi is that someone else will get to enjoy what she wants, what she currently has but won't be able to keep because she thinks she's not good enough to keep him, to deserve him. Big time ouchies, bro.

This is the first book I've every read where as soon as I was done, I immediately wanted to read it again. Part of that is that I started reading thinking this would be along the lines of a fun prank-war with pants feelings and oh no! actually it's Feelings feelings, like To Have and To Hoax Not, but it's definitely a different story and I want to read it through that lens. The other part is that it's clear that Naomi is an unreliable narrator, and I want to confirm that Nicholas never intended to trick Naomi into breaking up. Instead, it was all something she created in her own head to justify his rejection of her as not something she deserved. He's not rejecting the real me; he's rejecting a purposely exaggerated version of me I created specifically FOR him to reject. Maybe that's much more obvious if you don't trust her perception from the start, but I was expecting a different kind of story, so it took a little longer than it probably should have for me to catch on.

It wasn't all complicated feelings, though. The book was still fun. I laughed in plenty of places, and made other happy book sounds, so it was still very enjoyable. I wouldn't have finished it in a day if it was hard to read due to all the Emotions and whatnot. I really did love this book, even if it did make me feel things, and I can't wait to read it again. show less

This is like, a 4.5 for me. I try to be really careful about what 5 stars looks like, but I love love this book, and I want it to have a higher average, so I marked it as a 5 star

I genuinely love this book so much. Like the MCs are sorta petty (mostly the FMC). But I love second-chance romance. Love at first sight is so overdone and bleh. But fiances that can't stand each other
Also she thinks she's so good at hiding her emotions and opinions but she's so so bad at it (at least to her show more fiance) also, I love how he talks about her trying to hide everything. Like, everyone has had times when they knew the person they were talking to wasn't interested or engaging, and that sucks so bad, and the way he talks about that realization that she pays less and less attention to him hurts so bad.

And I loved how it's kind of an unreliable narrator, like I always assume the narrator is reliable, but as you get further in you can see how she's lying to herself and the reader. She thinks she hides her feelings and that he's so horrible and boring and is trying to bother her, but he knows and is so so much kinder to her. She lies to herself about his motives and tries to convince herself that he hates her and is unlikeable, but genuinely by the end of the book, you can see how all of his actions are motivated out of doing good to her. Love this book sm.

So at one point, she says something along the lines of "ugh you never buy me flowers but you buy ur mom flowers" and he's like "?? you said you didn't want flowers" and she's like "yeah well- well-" *slams door* So the next day, he sends like, 10 bouquets to her work (a failing junk shop) and her coworkers and her are both like omg it's oleander!! he's trying to kill you ahhhh!!! so they burn all of the flowers. and so when he texts her to ask if she got the flowers she's like "haha i burned them, you can't kill me with oleander!" and he's like "?? ma'am that was jasmine what the heck is wrong with you??" So anyway my point with this is that she's kinda petty and stupid, but also the "why don't you?" "you said not to" "okay i didn't totally mean it" conversation is real. And it's an example of he does something for her (and also in this case as kind of a take that statement) and she refuses to believe it's for her and instead believes he has some kind of ulterior motive.

Anyway, I started the book assuming she was The character to root for, but by the end I was like nah he was in the right the whole time and she was mostly self-sabotaging and overthinking and assuming. And also I genuinely wanted them to work out and be happy.

Also, I hate when authors assume the reader is stupid and point out everything, make sure you can't miss what this means and why that detail is significant. An example is when there's a mention of a trench coat that Naomi bought for Nicholas and how he wears it fall-spring and it's the most expensive thing she ever bought for him, and then a while later a puppy she loves pees on the coat and he's rlly upset about the coat getting ruined and she's like who cares and moves on. And all of that is said in like, 2 sentences.

Anyway anyway, I love this book. show less

I’d seen this in my recommendations and if I hadn’t enjoyed Hogle's Twice Shy so much I would have kept ignoring it -- the combination of cover and title suggests it’s about a couple who are cruel to each other. Okay, possibly that’s an over-exaggeration but it didn’t sound like something I wanted to read.

Naomi has reached the conclusion that the only reason she and her fiancé Nicholas are still together is that neither of them wants the consequences of being the one to end show more things. Naomi can’t afford to lose their house or pay non-refundable expenses for the extravagant wedding Nicholas’ mother has insisted on organising -- so she just has to motivate Nicholas to break their engagement before he succeeds in motivating her to walk away.

The situation has the potential to get ugly fast, but, perhaps because I knew the general direction this this was heading in, it felt safe to be amused by the bickering/banter, and this turns into a heartwarming story of two people who, once they stop trying to pretend that their relationship is #perfect, become better at communicating honestly and reconnect -- and rediscover how to have fun together.

Often miscommunication in romances is specifically about verbal communication and is resolved by characters talking to each other. While words are absolutely crucial for Naomi and Nicholas -- and it’s only because of things said that they gain a better understanding of each other’s ways of showing affection and appreciation -- I was struck by how clear it was that their communication issues also stemmed from not properly recognising each other’s non-verbal love languages. No one explicitly mentions “love languages” but I can’t think of another book which has so effectively portrayed the importance of multi-modal expressions of affection.

It’s not uncommon that I finish romance feeling wistful or even disappointed that some non-romance part of the narrative hadn’t been explored further. But I feel like this romance achieved all it needed to, all it had set out to do. Very satisfying. How unexpected!

His eyes narrow. “You’re right. Your hair’s an embarrassment in its natural state and your face is so anti–female beauty that if you go out like that, I’d insist on you walking backward and ten feet away from me. I want you to go upstairs right now and paint yourself unrecognizable.” He arches his eyebrows. “Did I do that right? Are those the words you’d like to put in my mouth?”
My chin drops. [...] “Actually, I’d like to put an apple in your mouth and roast you on a spit,” I say.
“Go ahead and wear pajamas to dinner, Naomi. You think that would bother me? You can go out dressed as Santa Claus and I wouldn’t care.”
Now I genuinely am insulted. “Why wouldn’t you care?”
He raises his eyes to mine. “Because I think you’re beautiful no matter what.”
Ugh. That’s really low, even for him. show less

I can count on one hand the number of contemporary romance books that I've both read AND enjoyed, and I don't even need to use anywhere near all of my fingers. So boy, was I ever surprised by how much I genuinely liked You Deserve Each Other. It's a lovers-to enemies-to lovers where the main characters are ACTUALLY enemies! You can feel the snarky hatred radiating off the pages. Sarah Hogle wrote some truly outrageous and hilarious scenes in this book, and I was thoroughly entertained show more throughout. My favorite aspect by far, though, was how much You Deserve Each Other exemplifies what I've long felt to be the truth about relationships - that true love can only really exist alongside vulnerability. show less