Reasons to pick this book up:
- f/f Rivals to lovers trope
- Loads of scheming friends (for a good cause!)
- Romantic cynic falling for a rom-com fangirl
- Loads of snarks and witty comebacks
Review:
“This could be my chance to tell the gay rom-com story of my heart, the kind I’ve never seen on-screen before, despite the hours of my life I’ve spent glued to the Netflix romantic comedy section, falling in love with the idea of love even as I yearned to see myself in the stories about it. Just because the straights in Hollywood don’t know how to tell my story doesn’t mean it’s not out there.”
The premise of this book is so enticing. A romantic cynic and a rom-com fangirl being somewhat coerced into shooting a film together for a film festival that rewards the winner with some awesome perks in pursuing film-related jobs in their future? And their mutual friends scheming to get those enemies to fall in love so they’ll stop bickering? Alex, I’ll take “gimme it” for five hundred.
Also, I’m going to be really honest with you and tell you that I’ve never read Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (I suffered enough at Uni, okay, I’m tired), so the references or plotlines based on that went over my head, but it didn’t take away any of my enjoyment. Besides, there’s so much drama and scheming in this, you can just imagine Shakespeare guzzling it all up just like I did.
The entire book is focused on Sophia’s and Emma’s seeming incompatibility. You’d think that Sophia is the unlikable character because she’s a cynic and uses every opportunity to harp on romance and the idea of true love. I don’t know whether it’s me getting old, but I actually really saw where she was coming from. Sophia’s heart’s been broken when her parents – who were always the most disgustingly in love couple – got divorced. After seeing such a seemingly solid relationship break apart, it’s easy to think that love is dead. Even though Sophia comes with a lot of barbs and snark, you can tell that she’s been hurt by this separation more than she lets on and it clouds her judgement on other people’s relationships.
Then we have Emma, the girl who’s in love with love. Even though she’s never had an epic romance herself, Emma loves romcoms (even though they don’t include bisexual people and thus never represent her) and helping her friends get the love they deserve. Indeed, much scheming in this book is to get her best friends to confess their love for the guys they’ve been crushing on and it makes for some hilarious drama when things go different than expected. Beyond that, Emma also struggles with coming out to her parents and escaping her solipsism. I found the portrayal of Emma so nostalgic in a way as I can remember being that young and realising how often I talked about myself, my interests, my struggles and even though Emma is aware of it and wants to change this self-focus, she has a hard time actually doing something about it – and I think that was a really relatable struggle. It’s easy wanting to change, but far more difficult to enact that change. Her emotional development takes time and instead of glossing over that harrowing process, Desombre makes it a known factor in how Emma deals with rejection, crushes and academic endeavours.
Despite Emma’s struggles, she wants to be someone who changes things in the movie industry, someone who will be a pioneer for bisexual representation so everyone can see themselves and believe they’re worthy of love, which just made me emotional again and again. The book’s strongest selling point is definitely the overarching discussion about LGBTQIAP+—and bisexual in particular—representation in media. So often bisexual people are portrayed as flighty or greedy, and Desombre here takes care to showcase that all Emma wants is to be represented, to see herself in media without being denounced to a stereotype. It’s an emotional and important message that will certainly resonate with readers.
Beyond that, Sophia’s and Emma’s romance arc was a lot to handle in this novel, since they come from such different stances on what love is and isn’t. It was fun watching them try to see the other’s perspective. The only thing that didn’t completely work for me was how quickly both Sophia and Emma accept that the other is in love with them when they overhear their friends commenting on it. I needed a bit more convincing to understand why these two people who seemingly hate each other and what they stand for suddenly act like they can’t say anything that would hurt the other’s feelings, when that’s literally all they set out to do in most conversations. While I think Kate (Emma’s cousin) would immediately go into full-on polite, friendly mode, I didn’t quite buy Emma and Sophia going down that road without any struggles. Despite that though, watching their romance unfold was riveting and there were some really cute moments (outdoor movie screening and they share a blanket, enough said) that warmed my heart.
With heaps of snark and scheming friends, I Think I Love You is a sweet, funny debut that juxtaposes romance lovers with romance cynics and shows that love, against all odds, always prevails.
I Think I Love You is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of March 2nd 2021.
Will you be picking up I Think I Love You? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
A sweet and funny debut novel about falling for someone when you least expect it . . . and finding out that real life romance is better than anything on screen.
Emma is a die-hard romantic. She loves a meet-cute Netflix movie, her pet, Lady Catulet, and dreaming up the Gay Rom Com of her heart for the film festival competition she and her friends are entering. If only they’d listen to her ideas. . .
Sophia is pragmatic. She’s big into boycotts, namely 1) relationships, 2) teen boys and their BO (reason #2347683 she’s a lesbian), and 3) Emma’s nauseating ideas. Forget starry-eyed romance, Sophia knows what will win: an artistic film with a message.
Cue the drama. The movie is doomed before they even start shooting . . . until a real-life plot twist unfolds behind the camera when Emma and Sophia start seeing each other through a different lens. Suddenly their rivalry is starting to feel like an actual rom-com.
