A wedding harpist disillusioned with love and a hopeless romantic cater-waiter flirt and fight their way through a summer of weddings in this effervescent romantic comedy from the acclaimed author of Today Tonight Tomorrow.
Quinn Berkowitz and Tarek Mansour’s families have been in business together for years: Quinn’s parents are wedding planners, and Tarek’s own a catering company. At the end of last summer, Quinn confessed her crush on him in the form of a rambling email—and then he left for college without a response.
Quinn has been dreading seeing him again almost as much as she dreads another summer playing the harp for her parents’ weddings. When he shows up at the first wedding of the summer, looking cuter than ever after a year apart, they clash immediately. Tarek’s always loved the grand gestures in weddings—the flashier, the better—while Quinn can’t see them as anything but fake. Even as they can’t seem to have one civil conversation, Quinn’s thrown together with Tarek wedding after wedding, from performing a daring cake rescue to filling in for a missing bridesmaid and groomsman.
Quinn can’t deny her feelings for him are still there, especially after she learns the truth about his silence, opens up about her own fears, and begins learning the art of harp-making from an enigmatic teacher.
Maybe love isn’t the enemy after all—and maybe allowing herself to fall is the most honest thing Quinn’s ever done.
Title: We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This
Author: Rachel Lynn Solomon
Genre: romance, young adult contemporary
Format: Digital ARC
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Date Published: June 8th, 2021
Rating: 4.7//5 Owls
Okay so overall I’m not a huge fan of contemporary romance novels, but there’s something about Rachel’s books that I was always love.
This story follows Quinn as she navigates the summer with Tarek, a guy who she awkwardly revealed her feelings for last summer and was met with…silence.
This book is big on the “miscommunication” troupe as Quinn and Tarek try and figure out what their relationship is and where they stand with eachother.
Quinn is a little unlikeable – she’s a but whiney and immature, but she also has quite a few struggles. She suffers from OCD, she feels like the black sheep of her family, and she doesn’t believe in love due to her parents brief separation when she was young.
Tarek believes in love to the extreme – his parents have the absolute cutest meet-cute story, and he longs to have an epic love story like theirs, but it also makes him a little immature in love. He associates grand romantic gestures with true love, and doesn’t truly understand romance.
This story is about a lot more than just falling in love. It’s about Quinn figuring out who she is on her own, without the guidance and demands that her parents expect from her. It’s about discovering what she is passionate about and what she wants to do with her life.
I loved that this was truly a coming of age story, something I’m not usually a huge reader of. Quinn faces a lot of real teenage struggles, and wants to discover who she is as a person as she starts to enter adulthood.
But then there’s the love story.
Obviously, our two leads find each other and *fall in love* but I truly loved the journey getting there. Tarek and Quinn are so different and I loved watching them overcome their obstacles and different perspectives to come together.
There was a surprise cameo by two of my favorite characters from one of Rachel’s previous books, and it made my heart so happy to see these two still happy and in love.
One of my favorite things about Rachel’s book is she always touches on the subject of *self-love* and female pleasure. I love that she openly has characters discuss pleasuring themselves, and women in general, and writes such open and honest sex/romance scenes. I love when characters actually talk about what they like and truly want to make their sexy time pleasurable for everyone involved.
This time around, Rachel took it a step further with her open and honest conversation and included mental health representation. Quinn has OCD and discusses how it impacts her life and the struggles she faces, and Tarek suffers from depression and also openly talks about the impact it had on his first year of college. It was so refreshing to see them actually discussing their feelings about their mental health and how they deal with it in their daily lives. They also discuss the topic of religion. Quinn is Jewish, similar to most of Rachel’s characters, but Tarek is Muslim. The two also talk about how this impacts their lives and how their families are treated. It’s all so naturally discussed, but something that you rarely see in YA novels. Let’s normalize open conversation in literature!
Overall, I absolutely loved this book. It was cutesy and sweet, but also serious and heartbreaking. It’s a story about growing up, falling in love, and discovering passions, and I loved every single second of it.
We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This is out TODAY and I highly highly highly recommend picking up a copy!!
Caffeinated Book Owl 