I don’t like being able to predict pretty much everything I’m about to watch/see. I know that’s what some people love about them, that you know what you’re getting yourself in for, but that’s not me. I am not a big rom-com fan and a big part of that is how formulaic I find them. The main thing that held me back from thoroughly enjoying it was that it did follow the beats of a rom-com (save for the ending.) The meet cute, the falling in love montage, the big fight, the dramatic gesture etc. My favourite character was Oliver, and I wish he’d had more page time as he was just so funny. It is written in first person past tense, so it could be interpreted as her looking back, but the comments came across to me as her thoughts in the moment rather than commentary afterwards. She still did the stupid things she was aware of. But that self-awareness in the breaks didn’t actually translate to self-awareness in her actions. It was an interesting style, and funny at times. There are a lot of 4th walls breaks in the book, with Saoirse directly addressing the reader with very self-aware comments. You can tell the author both loves them and sees their flaws as Saoirse and Ruby both fall on different sides of the love/hate divide, and discuss their failings. It’s a homage to rom-coms, particularly from the 90s and early 2000s. I enjoyed it far more than I was expecting to. I can’t actually remember why I got this book in the first place, but as it’s next on my shelf, it’s finally getting picked up. Add to your shelves here.Ĭontemporaries and books with heavy romance elements are not my usual reading material, and nor my favourite thing either.

It would be the perfect plan, if they weren’t forgetting one thing about the Falling in Love Montage: when it’s over, the characters actually fall in love… for real. Unbothered by Saoirse’s no-relationships rulebook, Ruby proposes a loophole: They don’t need true love to have one summer of fun, complete with every cliché, rom-com montage-worthy date they can dream up-and a binding agreement to end their romance come fall.

For a girl with one blue freckle, an irresistible sense of mischief, and a passion for rom-coms. She doesn’t see the point in igniting any romantic sparks if she’s bound to burn out.īut after a chance encounter at an end-of-term house party, Saoirse is about to break her own rules. A condition that Saoirse may one day turn out to have inherited. If they were real, her mother would still be able to remember her name and not in a care home with early onset dementia. Saoirse doesn’t believe in love at first sight or happy endings.

The love montage