​Sarah Hogle’s You Deserve Each Other kept me on my toes. Part grenade explosion, part tender re-connection, this book had me wondering what bad things happened to a once-in-love couple and if they’d make it back to each other even as my insides danced with laughter.

At the beginning of the book Naomi decides that she’ll do whatever it takes to get her fiancé Nicholas to break off their engagement. She’s started measuring her love for him in percentages and they’re not favorable.

To her shock, Nicholas has the same intentions and it turns into an all-out war to infuriate/annoy the other into saying I don’t and never will.

Sarah Hogle’s writing style is a dream and THIS IS A ROM COM which means it’s funny as hell. Once Naomi and Nick start letting their walls down, things turn from a shrapnel-flying battlefield to sweet, meaningful gestures and the sexual explosion we’ve all been waiting for. Kaboom.

But in general the whole lovers to enemies to lovers trope is a somewhat difficult one for me. Think about it: the author has to show so many different dynamics and make you feel each one. In this case, Hogle skillfully transforms them from enemies back to lovers but I had a harder time understanding and accepting the transition from lovers to enemies in the first place (& why Nicholas would make a decision he makes on the way back). Hogle gives some explanations but ultimately I wasn’t 100 percent convinced by their journey.

You Deserve Each Other is a madcap romance and I could have grabbed some popcorn, I enjoyed the show so much. Though there are some things about Naomi and Nicholas’s story that didn’t entirely convince me, the humor of it is a joy and so are their moments of vulnerability. After all, we probably don’t identify with butchering our own bangs out of spite but we *might* identify with not always being our best self; the frustrations of interfering relatives; and the butterflies that come with finding the person who sees you and loves you.

4.25 ⭐️.