YOU DESERVE EACH OTHER by Sarah Hogle
Margaret Atwood, in her Masterclass intro, smiles gleefully into the camera, “…Little Red Riding Hood. Let’s start the story a different way: ‘It was dark inside the wolf.’”
You Deserve Each Other employs this delightfully disorienting sensibility with a clever twist on the enemies to lovers trope. Here, lovers have become enemies as the romcom begins in the darkness of a relationship spiraling toward self-destruction.
The prologue gives just enough of the fluffy beginnings to entice: the euphoric anticipation of hero and heroine Nicholas and Naomi's, first kiss. But that’s just the charming glint of the wolf’s toothy smile before the narrative jumps into the belly of the beast. Almost 2 years later, Naomi and Nicholas have moved in together, their lives enmeshed and wedding date looming, but they couldn't be farther from an HEA.
By all outward signs their relationship is perfect, but Naomi's so busy pretending, she’s actually fooled herself. She’s so completely checked out she can neither remember how the relationship began, nor recognize that Nicholas sees and cares about her distress. Despite devoting herself to misleading him, she's hurt and angry that it appears to be working.
All of which sounds like a recipe for a depressing read, but it’s actually the opposite. YDEO is truly the romcom it claims to be. Maybe it’s 8 weeks of isolation with my husband talking, but there was something cathartic in watching her indulge every childish impulse as she finally drops the facade.
She throws herself into a game of one-upmanship in which she and Nick each attempt to push the other into cancelling the wedding, but in the process, unearth the real wounds and unmet needs that have been dividing them.
The story is told entirely from Naomi’s unreliable POV, and it’s a feat of craft that Nicholas is transformed, and revealed in startling depth, entirely through Naomi’s evolving perspective.
The book is both outrageously funny and surprisingly deep in its exploration of growing apart from one's chosen partner and the bravery it takes first to examine one's own insecurities and desires, and then to share them. It's as artful as it is entertaining.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
