yOU DESERVE EACH OTHER

By Sarah Hogle

A second chance romance that has you rethink what makes a good love story.

The Ugly Truth:

I never normally go for the "second chance romance" books, likely because they almost feel too real for me. In most cases, I feel that they miss the romantic idea of "first glance and the world goes silent" and instead create a sense of distrust in the characters while also including all the raw emotions that we try to escape in the day-to-day. In other words, gone is the fairytale, in with reality, and it hurts.

That being said, You Deserve Each Other might have just changed my opinion on everything. Naomi and Nicholas seem to be the most unlikely match and at the beginning of the book you almost want to yell to them that there is nothing to save. Let the marriage die.

The set-up of neither wanting to pay for a wedding, so both driving one another to the brink of Crazyville, is a clever and underutilized plotline that was refreshing to dive into and laugh along about. It also gave us readers the opportunity to see just how unhinged Naomi was, and, naturally, unveiled my love for her. Not only was the humor in this book top-tier and had me giggling out loud, but I actually felt I could relate to her character. The feeling of never being enough, sometimes struggling with the reality of situations, and the idea that one should never want to ask for help are all very real emotions women feel in the day-to-day. Naomi also portrayed that while women do not need a man to come and save them, or clean up any of their wild messes, they do need a partner-in-crime to support them and, at the very least, make them feel more secure in any decision they may choose to make.

On a similar note, You Deserve Each Other helped portray how the pressures a man feels when searching for "the one" that I believe often go unrecognized. For the first time in a long time, I was able to understand how much love is really two-sided and how both parties involved need to be moving forward together. In my opinion, Nicholas was a more complex character than even our leading lady. With family pressures, the need to break free from the cycle of "work then you die" mentality, and struggling to keep any relationship (friend or not) alive, Nicholas was surviving rather than living and it was beautiful to see how love can change everything.

The pranks, the laughter, the love and the hope was what kept me reading, and made me read again and again.