You Deserve Each Other

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 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 show more 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 adored this book. It's like enemies-to-lovers within an engagement-in-trouble. When we meet the characters, they're on their first date. Fast forward about two years and they're engaged and miserable. Unlike a lot of these books (To Have and to Hoax), You Deserve Each Other is told entirely from one POV, which makes us really dislike Nicholas at first. Eventually, we realize that he's been trying to get Naomi to cancel the engagement as well... or to make her angry enough that she'll finally start paying attention to him again. He rightfully calls her out for dissociating and instead of being an ally against his horrible parents, she's just checked out. In her POV, we see that she's felt he isn't being an ally, never standing up for show more her as his mother steamrolls her attempts at planning any part of their wedding.


Readers who have a low tolerance for sabotage and pranking will not enjoy this book, but readers who can get behind Naomi as she acts like the worst version of herself in an attempt to get Nicholas to dump her will be thoroughly amused and then charmed as the two find their way back to each other--stronger than before.

P.S.: Naomi didn't go to college and the fact that Nicholas is a dentist has caused some class/education rifts between Naomi's friends and Nicholas. I liked the way Hogle handled that.


Content Warnings: body-shaming (including that MiL has wedding dress sized down w/o bride's consent), horrible parents


Suzanne received a digital copy of this book for review but purchased it on audio. 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 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.

Anyone who has been in a long term relationship of any sort knows that it's not all roses and candlelight dinners. There are times you love your partner and times you wonder where to hide the body. Or maybe I'm projecting. ::wink:: But seriously, every successful relationship has highs and lows and it takes commitment to work through the lows and remember why you fell in love with your person in the first place. Certainly all relationships aren't worth the work but the ones that are, well, they really are. And it's this idea, that of fiding your way back to happy and love in a relationship is at the heart of Sarah Hogle's debut novel, You Deserve Each Other.

Namoi and Nicholas's relationship starts, like many, in a glow of love and joy. show more Almost two years on, after they've gotten engaged, Naomi kind of despises Nicholas even as she posts glowing captions on social media. She can't remember what she loved about him and wants to call of the wedding. But whoever calls it off has to cover the massive expenses already paid and since Naomi can't afford that (she's about to lose her job as the store she works at is closing), she's devised a plan to make Nicholas call it off and foot that bill instead. She's going to sabotage their relationship. Nicholas responds in kind. Each of them is bratty and vindictive toward the other. They bicker and scheme, letting all of their bottled up resentment spew because they aren't grown up enough to communicate about where their formerly wonderful relationship has gone sour. The lengths they go to in order to get under each other's skin is often incredibly entertaining even as the reader winces at their childishness. Luckily, the second half of the book sees them slowly working back to a friendship, a united front, and a realization that they do, in fact, still love each other.

The novel is first person from Naomi's perspective so the information the reader gets about the relationship is one sided. It can be hard to live in her brain in the first half of the book, stewing in all of the unhappiness and anger she's holding onto. Nicholas comes off as a snob and her future mother-in-law is an underhanded gorgon from hell. It is only as the story progresses that it is clear how deeply unhappy and insecure Naomi is with other aspects of her life, allowing it to color her reactions to every irritation she feels with Nicholas. They clearly lost their way as the relationship progressed, losing sight of who each of them was at core. Only by finding themselves again, looking back to when they met and were those past people they each fell in love with, will they be able to be happy together again. The writing is funny and the premise is an unusual one for a rom com. Hogle has walked the line with her characters, making them not so very likable in the beginning but allowing the reader to discover their appealing sides as they both rediscover those sides of themselves and by the end the reader is rooting for them to be the happily ever after. Fun and frothy, this is a promising debut. Hang in through the sometimes mean-spirited shenanigans and enjoy the sweet, but still entertaining, reconciliation. show less

Recommended: sure!
For a romance that's a bit different than most but has familiar tropes worked in, for a book that made me cackle and cackle and really just laugh a ton, for a lovers who are enemies back to lovers kind of storyline that strays a bit from the usual in all the best ways

Thoughts:
I read Angelica's review and that reminded me of how I had wanted to read this book when it came out, before it fell off my radar. Well, she successfully brought it back to my mind, and it was available at the library right away so the fates were aligned! And, oh my, was this exactly what I needed at the moment!

So many romance novels or romcoms are of a couple who are first meeting and starting to fall in love. This one is well after that, when show more they're sort of falling out of love. As for me, well, I loved that! It's a refreshing change to the usual formula. Having felt that fizzle in a relationship when it starts feeling more like an annoying roommate than the love of your life, Naomi's fears mirrored my own from the past. They delivered poignant moments that made it so easy to sympathize with her.

And, of course, Nick. The evildoer in this case, the man we have to hate. Hogle successfully played a few tricks and avoided the trap of a flat character to take all the blame. We quickly move into a more dynamic relationship between Nick and Naomi... even if it is mostly characterized by the increasingly terrible things they do to each other. Honestly, some of them had me cringing so hard; I hate people being deliberately cruel to each other. But luckily, the story progresses, and I was able to start laughing again.

I've already mentioned two out of my top three fav things: how manically funny the book is, and the familiar pain of realtionship on its last legs. My third favorite? Nick's emotional honesty and depth. Usually in romances, men are not really into their feelings (unless it's lust). Those have their place, but damn was it amazing to have an MC in this book who not only understood what he needed from the relationship, but was able to clearly state it to his partner. To talk about their issues (albeit sometimes with thrown shoes and the like). Ugh, it was amazing. Who wouldn't want someone so self-aware as that??

So in conclusion: Angelica had it right when she read this three times in one week. It's worth it. And it's definitely one to buy. show less

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 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, show more 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

I didn't know what to think going in. I thought the blurb made it sound like our main characters were in an arranged marriage or something. I mean, how could they be engaged and hate each other without some trope like engaged for inheritance, etc.? I was very delighted by the tale.

Once I was in the story and knew the characters, the situation felt very real--two people who love each other, grown apart by time and life experiences, and no one says anything to rock the boat. It's probably more real-life than a lot of romances I read. And I was rooting for Nicky and Naomi. They didn't disappoint.

I particularly loved the flowers. Haven't we all been there? You see someone else get flowers and think, "Man, I wish I'd get flowers." But then show more when you do, you're just like, "These are pretty, but what am I going to do with them? They're going to crumble in a week and I'll have to clean them up and dump their stinky water. I hope they weren't expensive." Okay, maybe that's just me. Naomi and Brandy's responses were over the top, but that's who they are. I don't want to spoil it by going on further. I definitely enjoyed it.

At the end, I wanted more. An epilogue. Nicky's mom to....something, I don't know. But I'm writing this review after a week, and I still remember the main characters' names, which means it stuck with me. I'm giving it 4 stars, but I might up that if I re-read it at some point.

Definitely recommend and will pick up Hogle's next book! show less