The Rom-Commers - Katherine Center - ★★.½

AUTHOR: Katherine Center

NARRATOR: Patti Murin

GENRE: Romantic Comedy

PUBLICATION DATE: June 11, 2024

RATING: 2.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A fun romcom with an entertaining premise, but mixed feelings about the lead characters as they are so toxic. Liked the secondary characters much better than the main pair. The first half is much stronger than the second half. Slightly outlier review coming up.

Plot Preview:

As Emma Wheeler is the sole caretaker for her dad, she has willingly put aside her dreams of becoming a screenwriter for more than a decade. But when her friend and agent calls her with the opportunity of a lifetime, and a chance to work with her idol, acclaimed screenwriter Charlie Yates, Emma cannot resist. With her younger sister Sylvie stepping into the carer’s role, Emma flies to Los Angeles, hoping for the chance of a lifetime to convert into a memorable work experience. What she didn’t expect is that Charlie Yates didn’t even know about her arrival, and is adamant that he doesn’t work with amateurs. Never mind that the romcom script he wrote was garbage. After all, that script is just a filler to get another pet project greenlit, a project far more important than romcoms. Emma, of course, can’t accept this. Die-hard fan or not, she will not allow anyone to tell her that romcoms are useless, or to mess with the only career-transforming opportunity she has received in ages.

The story comes to us in Emma’s first-person perspective.

Bookish Yays:

💖 The secondary characters are mostly memorable. I thought Sylvie would be a bit self-centred as is typical in this genre, but she was so sweet, as was her partner Salvador. Barring one, no one is an outright jerk. And all have at least one flaw, so they are realistic as well.

💖 Witty banter that adds some entertainment to the story. Also, some genuinely funny comic situations.

💖 All the positive advocacy about romcoms. So many readers shame romcoms and romcom readers, so it was great to see this book give it back with vehemence. Also loved all the observations on books and writing and reading choices.

💖 No insta love, no outright steamy scenes. Yay for me, might be a Nay to others.

💖 Cuthbert the Peruvian Guinea pig, even in his minimal role, is adorable.

💖 The author's note, which roots so strongly for romance novels to be accepted. Appreciate it!

Bookish Mixed Bags:

💓 The book started excellently, and I began dreaming of hitting that elusive 5 star. But soon, the main characters began revealing their true selves, and the potholes of this genre started making the story a bumpy ride. This made my rating slide beyond control. The first half of the book is still okay and has many lovely moments; the second half is nonsensical. One cliched drunken scene towards the end goes so unbelievably farfetched that I couldn’t stop my eyes from rolling. There is one scene where Emma goes ballistic at Sylvie over something the latter said. I just didn’t get that! How are we supposed to feel sorry for Emma when Emma herself was the first to say something equally bad, or possibly worse, to Sylvie!?

💓 Emma is a huge fan of Charlie Yates. This means that almost every time she sees him or talks about him (which is a whole load!), she keeps referring to him by his full name. (If I didn’t have the audiobook, I would have actually counted the number of times “Charlie Yates” appears on the page.) Why is this a Mixed Bag and not a Nay? Well, if Colin Firth comes in front of me, you might see me shouting his name with equal gusto hundreds of times, so I do understand Emma to some extent. 😆

💓 It is nice to see a story with screenwriters; rarely do we get to see this profession in romcom fiction. However, we hardly get to see Emma and Charlie hash the script out together. After the initial discussions, it was more like they were typing side by side while working independently.

💓 The ending is pretty good for the genre. It is still hyperbolic, but compared to some other scenes in the book, it is still decent. Liked the epilogue even better.

Bookish Nays:

💔 Emma and Charlie – Sigh… What tiresome characters for a romcom! Charlie goes in circles, promising Emma something but actually lying about it, again promising something but lying yet again… Not at all appealing behaviour! He is quite mean and selfish at times. This should have made me feel sorry for Emma, but she too isn’t great. She constantly bullies and guilt-trips Charlie so that she can fix him and win him over to her thinking. Not done! In fact, some of her thoughts and actions are so bad that if a male character had done the same, readers would have red-flagged him. We can’t ignore manipulative behaviour just because it is by a female character. In a way, I suppose they deserve each other. They both redeem themselves to a certain extent by the end but it is not easy to ignore their overall toxic behaviour.

💔 Emma has a tendency to break the fourth wall in her first-person narrative. But whom is she speaking to? Us? This writing choice just didn’t make sense in the story.

💔 There’s a health scare in the book that might be triggering for some readers. The trigger itself wasn’t an issue for me, but the way it was (mis)used in the final section was unbelievable. I don’t want to go into spoilers, but I’ll just say: it was ridiculous, both in terms of writing and execution.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 11 hrs 21 min, is narrated by Patti Murin. If it were not for her, I would have been far more annoyed at the book. She was okay at voicing Charlie, but she more than made up for it by her performance of Emma’s first-person narration. So much enthusiasm and expression! I could feel every emotion through her voice.

We audiobook listeners rarely get to hear the author's note, but this audiobook has not just the author’s note but also a bonus scene from Charlie's perspective, both narrated by the author herself. A nice double surprise.

This is my first book by this acclaimed author, so I am slightly disappointed to see how it went. It wasn’t a total disaster; I did have a lot of fun as well. Plus, this had a balance of rom and com in equal measure. I was looking for a light read, and in that sense, this offered plenty of feel-good moments.

However, when we read romcoms, we love to root for the couple to be with each other. And we know that if there is ever a sequel or a spinoff, we will see the couple happy with each other. Not in this case. I predict a divorce for Emma and Charlie within a couple of years, unless they kill each other first.

In short, the problematic characters and a couple of really stupid scenes in the second half messed up what could have been an enjoyable book. The audiobook narrator deserves a chunk of the credit for saving the experience. In fairness, I am no longer a regular romcom reader, so I don’t have that much tolerance for OTT scenes. This might work better for the right reader who loves mushy emotions and comic connections.

If you still want to read this, I do recommend the audio version, provided you can toss out your brains and just enjoy the silliness for what it is. Not a must-read though.

Do note that mine is an outlier review as most readers seem to have enjoyed this book. So please go through other opinions and then take a call.

2.5 stars. (which could easily have been upwards of 3.5 stars had the second half been more sensible and the main characters more loveable.)

My thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ALC of “The Rom-Commers”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.

Content warning: Cancer.