I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Netgalley but all opinions provided are my own.

INT: Jessica C.’s house, a white ranch set off the road. Picture a house that looks well-lived in and loved and also cluttered with discarded kid-related things/suffering from some unfortunate design decisions made in the 90s.

The darkened house is lit by the glow of a Christmas tree. A bowl of milk speckled with Cap’n Crunch crumbs at her side, heavily pregnant Jessica C. contemplates going back to sleep, the errands she should run today, and whether her own love story (of repeatedly forcing a borderline antisocial man to talk to her until he gave up the fight and acquiesced to be her partner) is a meet-cute. (She knows it is not.) But she’s feeling particularly proud to be part of the human race this morning, and besides that, she’s still feeling the glow of the lovely Would Like to Meet by Rachel Winters, which had an ending that could only be called adorable.

Noise in the background. Someone’s yelled. Jessica’s head springs up alarmingly fast from its focus on the computer.

Jessica: Oh shit. Baby’s waking.

**CUT**

I’m a hugeeeeee fan of the rom-com. And I’m not even that particular. Basically give me any movie with a vaguely romantic storyline and I’m happy. Woman fakes that she’s the fiancée of a man she’s never talked to who’s also in a coma? Two thumbs up! Female FBI agent has to get a makeover before the hot-kinda-asshole-ish coworker notices her in a positive way? Okayyyyy! Just make sure you give her some good music to walk out to post-makeover and end the scene with a funny reminder that deep down, she hasn’t changed. She’s beautiful and awkward!

So Rachel Winters’s Would Like to Meet is a kind of catnip for me. An astute, hilarious rom-com with an irrepressible heroine who has her own distinct style? Sign me up.

Evie Summers is an assistant agent who aspires to be an agent and secretly aspires to be a screenwriter. But she gave up her dreams after receiving some devastating criticism years before, and now she plugs away helping her boss with his clients. Said boss is super lazy and also incompetent (among other things), but hints that she’ll be up for a promotion if she can get their prize client—an Oscar-winning screenwriter—to finish the rom-com he’s already been paid to write.

Ezra is the Oscar-winning screenwriter. He’s a jerk. But he might have hidden depths. But he’s also a jerk.

Evie and Ezra make an arrangement: she’ll reenact a series of meet-cutes from famous rom-coms to see if it’s really possible to meet your one and only in one of those ways, and after each one, she’ll send Ezra a report of what happened. He’ll work on his rom-com script and indirectly ensure that not only does the place where Evie works stay afloat, but she’ll get a promotion.

Along the way, Evie’s helped by widower, single dad, and talented former photographer Ben, who makes it obvious that he looks down on her meet-cute project.

I should say that usually love triangle plots don’t work for me. But it’s pretty well done here. The pacing of both relationships, the way that Evie’s writing renaissance is linked to her meet-cute mission, and the way that her meet-cute mission is linked to her ability to keep her job, make it successful. Throughout the book there are times when I get vaguely annoyed/frustrated with Evie—sometimes I wanted her to throw a drink in a certain someone’s face/go a little farther in discouraging the person—but I could deal because of the aforementioned reasons.

Also, because this book is freaking funny. Evie gets herself into some really embarrassing situations but she’s resilient, positive (but not in an annoying way), and resourceful, and she lights the book up. Her friends are equally amazing. The friendship quartet that Winters creates is fantastic; it’s a no holds barred kind of friendship with LOL-moments and cringe-worthy moments; the friends are sometimes selfish and self-absorbed but also loving and hilarious and generous and all too human. In its capacity to let people be people, Would Like to Meet feels Bridget Jones-esque in some ways.

Though one aspect of this plot seems kind of obvious to me throughout the book, and there was at least one scene when I thought, Evie, are you kidding me?! (and not in a good way), most of it’s a delight, from the chapter openings—which look like they’re taken from a script, to any scene with Ben’s daughter Anette. Would Like to Meet is fizzy and sparkly and joyful, but it’s also substantive. These are people with some real struggles, even if they’re often in some ridiculous situations. And the ending is pure loveliness. I’m sure I had the biggest smile on my face, but really, read the book and tell me if you blame me.

In Would Like to Meet, Evie stands up for herself and is reminded of what makes her happy. She also finds her HEA…and luckily for us, not in the way she expected.

​
This is kind of a hard one to rate, but I'm ultimately going with 4.5 ⭐️ ​ because what's good here is so good, and reading this book was a happiness-inducing experience.

I really liked the format of this book. I liked the script format. Enjoyed the relationships and how sweet the story was.

This was a cute, light read. I didn't connect with the characters, Evie and Ezra, as much as I wanted and it was pretty predictable. Very rom-comesque. If you're looking for a fun, easy read to pass the time this is a good one to pick up!

Oh my goodness I was so excited to find this book as an arc at work and especially because I LOVED this book :D

I received an advanced copy of this book from Netgalley.

To describe this book in terms of the rom-coms it’s based on, I’d say it’s “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton” meets “Sleepless in Seattle”.

I loved the story, and the writing was mostly engaging enough to keep me hooked, but I did find that a couple of the attempts at self-awareness didn’t land. However, it was a quick read and It kept me entertained for a couple days. It just doesn’t need to be quite so self-aware.

This book was a fantastic read, The characters were well developed. The author had me rooting for Evie. The storyline was sprinkled with hilarious and touching moments. I loved this rom-com!

A fun read but also utterly predictable. There is some good dialogue but Evie's best friends are the token best friends seen in all romantic comedies and Chick Lit - the gay best friend, the Type-A best friend and the slightly ditzy/airhead best friend. Also, add a precocious, smarter-than-the-adults kid that has always been the staple of this genre.

This is a good read if you have no expectations and want to turn your brain off and have fun with a book.

Oh this was so fun! I love a good rom-com and this put all those film premises to the test and...well, let's just say they didn't all go like they do in the movies. Evie is desperate for a promotion. She's been working as an agent's assistant for seven years and is waiting for her boss to let her move up. But now, because of one of their client, Ezra Chester(*cough* douchebag *cough*), she might lose her job entirely. Let's get to the review!

Evie feels like she is behind in her career. The people she started off with have been promoted to full film and TV agents and she's still an assistant seven years later. And as an assistant to Monty, she does almost everything. But when one of their clients, Ezra Chester, is late turning in a script, Evie has to figure out how to get him to write something or she and her boss will be completely out of a job.

So she schedules a meeting with Ezra to figure out what's up, but what she finds out is worse than she could have imagined. He was supposed to be working on a script for a rom-com after his first movie blew up. But when Evie meets with him she finds out...HE HASN'T WRITTEN ANYTHING! He's already way past his deadline and Monty is freaking out more than a little (honestly, as a deadline-crazed person, I'm freaking out a little).

Now, Evie must figure out how to get him to write something...anything! Her plan: she will go out and try different meet cutes from all the most popular rom-com movies and write about them to give Ezra inspiration. The goal is for Evie to end up falling in love with one of the men she meets to show Ezra that rom-coms aren't unrealistic.

This results are many hilarious and embarrassing moments. But after one of her more embarrassing meet cutes (she spills a drink on a guy which results in children puking and it's a mess) she meets Annette and Ben, a father and daughter who are at the local coffee shop every Sunday. They see Evie embarrass the hell out of herself but make her feel better afterward (love them!).

At first, Evie makes friends with Annette as she is very interested in Evie's meet cute project. Ben, on the other hand, is a little grumpy and doesn't seem interested in getting to know her. But she has other things to worry about so she doesn't worry too much about him.

As the story goes on and she spends more time with Ezra as he begins to write and she gets to know him better, she wonders if there's something there. If maybe there's a spark.

But she also spends more time with Ben and Annette and Ben becomes someone she comes to rely on and Annette is possibly the cutest child ever.

This story is not all about romance though. Evie also has a group of fabulous friends. Jeremy, Sarah, and Maria always have Evie's back, but have lives of their own that she sees as being wildly more successful than hers. This ultimately leads to a bit of tension.

The thing the friends are focused on the most is preparing themselves for the hell of Sarah's bachelorette weekend and wedding (I don't want to give too much away but omg the bachelorette weekend is a hilarious disaster). While they are making plans, they're all in a group chat asking for all the details of Evie's meet cute situations. They give advice, tell jokes, and are delightful.

It's only after the bachelorette party and Sarah's wedding when the shit hits the fan. SPOILER ALERT! The first omg moment is with Ben. After Ben helps Evie replan the whole bachelorette weekend when she realized she didn't secure the venue she was supposed to and decorates the less-than-stellar replacement venue, he shows up at Sarah's wedding.

Unfortunately, so does Ezra. Ezra shouts (literally) his feelings for Evie which then turns into Ben and Ezra fighting each other and ending up covered in wedding cake.

Not only is Sarah upset about her wedding cake being ruined, she's upset at Evie for bringing all this drama to her wedding.

Ben, embarrassed, leaves and when Evie tries to talk to him he tells her that she needs to figure out what she wants from him. She keeps asking him to fix things for her but doesn't show any inclination to take it further or that she appreciates his sacrifice. He has feelings for her but after losing his wife, he won't get into anything that isn't serious and he can't believe his life has turned into fighting another dude in cake.

And then there's Ezra. After giving into his every whim, Evie eventually stops giving him meet cute stories and stops communicating with him altogether. She only knows he's still writing due to the updates she gets from Monty. Then the script comes in and Evie's finally able to read it...well, guess what?

Ezra's script is almost word-for-word Evie's experiences with all her meet cutes. He took the stories she told him and copied it into a script. (I swore so much at Ezra while reading this)

That's when Evie is sent over the edge and puts her big girl pants on and starts to demand everything she deserves from Monty and Ezra. She'll scream bloody murder to anyone who will listen if they try to sell the script as Ezra's. OMG it was so good to see her throw all her fucks away and give both men exactly what they deserve.

With this newfound confidence, she then talks to Ben and...well, this is a romance after all. It's not quite enemies-to-lovers. It's  more acquaintances to friends to romantic tension to oh fuck I messed up to apologies to something like love. SPOILERS DONE

Throughout all this, Evie rediscovers the joy writing brings her and how good she is at it. Someone told her when she first started out at an assistant that writing scripts wasn't for her and she believed them. But through writing up the meet cutes for Ezra, she found that she's actually really good at it.

Would Like to Meet is funny, romantic, aggravating (in the right way), emotional, and a delight to read. If you're looking for a rom-com with a fun premise and a message, you have to check out this book. I am giving it 4 out of 5 stars. If you love classic rom-com movies, you'll also really appreciate the different scenarios Evie goes through.

Would Like to Meet by Rachel Winters comes out December 3, 2019

Thank you to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for the free eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Loved it! Loved it! Loved it! Read it while on a plane. My seat mate must have felt our seats shaking as I tried to contain my laughter.

A comedy with a side of romance, this light and fun book is filled with classic rom com tropes and meet cutes that will make you nostalgic for your favorite movies of years past. It’s well written (if not a bit long), and features a feisty heroine who meets her match in the most unexpected way. I loved every part of the romance, I just wish it had been featured more prominently.

The story follows Evie, an aspiring screenwriter who has been working as an assistant for much longer than is acceptable in the industry. She quickly discovers she’s at a make or break moment in her career - her boss’s star writer needs to get out of his funk and write a new screenplay, or the business is in trouble. If Evie helps Ezra, she gets a promotion; if not, she’ll be looking for a new job. With that in mind, Evie goes about recreating classic rom com meet cutes to help with inspiration, meeting a man and his daughter who watch all of her antics take place.

While I think this is well written, I’ll openly admit that it dragged for me. I was expecting more of a rom com feel, but it’s much more a comedy and it takes awhile to truly get going. Once our hero began showing up more frequently, my enjoyment of the book increased exponentially. It’s a sweet, clean, feel good romance that develops slowly and takes a backseat to the screenplay storyline. The interactions between Evie and her guy put a smile on my face, and made the whole story worth a read. Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with an ARC. I am voluntarily leaving a review of this heartwarming and funny book.

Heat Factor: Think Cary Grant/Katharine Hepburn or Humphrey Bogart/Audrey Hepburn
Character Chemistry: Subtle but present
Plot: Woman makes a fool of herself repeatedly and then finds her voice
Overall: SO FUN

Now this is a romantic comedy! I’m pretty sure there were a few times that I kept my husband awake with my laughter.

Here’s the deal: Evie is assistant to a screenwriters’ agent, and she MUST convince a spoilt, artistic screenwriter to produce a script for a rom-com. Ezra’s already blown past several deadlines, and the producers are issuing ultimatums. Evie needs Ezra to write the script or she’ll not only never become an agent, she’ll lose her job. Ezra is waaaaaaaaaaay too posh to write something as low brow as a romantic comedy. It’s not real life! Desperate, Evie makes a deal to try to meet (and fall in love with) someone using a meet cute from a rom com. To prove it’s real, of course.

The results are hilarious. It begins with Evie trying to meet someone by spilling a drink on him, with hilarious results. All the results of these encounters are hilarious. But back to that first encounter… After Evie spills fresh squeezed orange juice blended with a raw egg all over not only her prospective love interest but also all over his granny and a demonic small child named Justice, leading to:

"What can only be described as a gleaming fountain of sick shot out of her mouth with such force that when it hit Detty’s face he was knocked backward by a foot.

"The whole cafe froze, silent but for the deafening sound of dripping coming from Detty."

Then Evie meets the man and his daughter who had been playing it cool while all this snafu went down.

“'You’ve been the best thing to happen here in ages,' [Anette] declared.

“'That’s very sweet,' I replied, deciding to take this as a compliment. Somehow I didn’t think her dad agreed. 'But today was a complete one-off, I promise. I never do things like that.'

"For whatever reason, this earned me Ben’s full attention. He looked at me, hooded brown eyes flashing with something like amusement. 'Really?' he said. 'Then why was that the second time we’ve seen you spill your drink on someone in this cafe?'

When I first read the synopsis, I thought Ezra would be the love interest. Then I read the prologue and I thought Ben would be the love interest. Who is the love interest!? Winters walks this line pretty well all the way through the book. Ezra is the NOB that Evie christened him at the beginning, but as he interacts with her he shows some roundness and likeability. There are moments. (Oh la la!) For his part, Ben really doesn’t spend a ton of time on the page, and he’s extremely reserved. He knows about Evie’s meet cute activities and doesn’t approve, and she refers to him as “Mr. Judgy” at one point. It’s sort of a Bridget Jones Darcy/Daniel Cleaver situation. Sort of. Daniel Cleaver is pretty terrible. Moving on. Ben is obviously an amazing man, and I want to crack his shell open real bad.

The draw of this book is the slow burn and that line Winters walked that made me think I might be wrong about who was Evie’s true love. It gave me all the feels. Like when Humphrey Bogart punches William Holden at the end of Sabrina. Slow burns are the best.

Evie was also exactly what I needed right now. You know when the protagonist is just having a terrible, unsatisfying life and you’re like, “You need to get out of your own way and be happy!” Even though it’s very nice to have money and security because you have bills to pay and blowing up your life seems fantastically impractical? But what is the point of being miserable? I don’t always love that situation in books, but I was all in with Evie as she dealt with all her work nonsense.

Also, did I mention it was hilarious?

I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We disclose this in accordance with 16 CFR §255.

It's an adorable rom-com about an aspiring screenwriter who both personally and professionally finds a way to weave iconic rom-com tropes into reality as she searches for love. It's fast-paced and an easy read, perfect for a cozy day of reading. Adorable and fun.

Would You Like to Meet is absolutely, without a doubt, one of the funniest books I have ever read. Rachel Winters deserves to have this made into a movie and I guarantee it would be a hit!

If you are a fan of romantic comedies, get this book now. I don’t want to give it away, but you will be treated to the entire genre of rom-coms within the overall rom com book itself in one of the most creative ways possible. Through the hijinks of Evie Summers as she tries to get a high profile screenwriter to complete his latest project, you will be laughing out loud.

Ezra, the screenwriter, plays Evie perfectly as he drags her along for the ride. But does he? And how does the dad in the coffee shop with the daughter who is deaf fit into the picture?

Put “Would You Like to Meet” (WYLTM) at the top of your reading list now. You will definitely be glad you did!

Can you find your one true love from a meet-cute? Evie is out to prove (for the sake of her job) that true love can spark in the most rom-com cliche of ways. Winters created a charming rom-com with gut-busting, hysterical scenes and endearing characters.

For fans of "Waiting for Tom Hanks" and "When Harry Met Sally."

I found myself struggling to establish the connection I was hoping for while reading and decided to shelve at this time.

I love both romantic comedies and smart British chick lit. This is both, so it’s no wonder I enjoyed it.

Evie is the long-time assistant to an old boys’ club literary agent. She years before gave up her dream of writing screenplays and now lives in hope of becoming an agent herself. When her boss gives her the assignment to get a recalcitrant writer client to finish a promised romantic comedy screenplay, Evie is all in, no matter what it takes.

What it takes in this case is to prove to NOB (her nickname for the writer) that rom-coms are realistic by setting up her own meet-cutes and writing to NOB about them. Needless to say, most attempts go hilariously awry. While much of the story was rather predictable, Winters’ characters and their great interactions were so darned entertaining that I didn’t care that I figured out long before Evie what was going on.

I definitely will look for this author’s next story.

What a cute story! I love rom coms and all the references to the different movies were really fun. Great characters, and the friends added great comic relief.

I loved it! If you love watching romantic comedies this book is a nod to all rom coms. So Evie is determined that you can fall in love by meeting the way people meet in a romantic comedy. She calls it a meet cute. Unfortunately for her, her meet cutes end in disaster. I laughed out loud so many times. She is trying to help a screenwriter write a romantic comedy so she sends him her disastrous meet cutes to try to help inspire him to write because her job is on the line. All romantic comedies usually have a serious story line as well and this one has one with her friends which I could have done without, but its okay. Evie is planning her friend's hen do (the story takes place in England so that is a bachelorette party). I feel like if you want the perfect bachelorette party plan it yourself. Don't put it on your friends who cannot afford to do it the way you want. But that is a side note. Evie starts up a conversation with a dad and daughter at the coffee shop and the whole time I was screaming at Evie to see what was right in front of her. The book club scene is hilarious. The clogged toilet scene is hilarious! It was SO good. When this comes out I will tell everyone to read it!

"Evie, my pet, some of the best friends I ever made after your dad passed were in my book group. They loved a bit of smut too. All the best people do."

This is one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read this year. Since this is October, saying that really means it’s good!

Once I got past the slow beginning, I was hooked on finding out what would happen with Evie. Evie is engaging in a series of “meet cutes” to prove to an award-winning scriptwriter that they work. If he’s convinced, then he will finish the script he is working on for her agency. Yes, it is thin reasoning but it works.

The series of meet cutes are hysterical. I don’t often laugh out loud while reading, smile yes, but laugh? I laughed at several of the pseudo meetups, all while rooting for Ben to win the day. The story has a perfect ending. I highly recommend this book.

Winters is clever to intentionally center rom com tropes like the “meet cute” in this story of Evie, an assistant to a screenwriters’ agent, who agrees to work with her agency’s most famous client to ensure that he writes his promised rom com screenplay. Evie agrees to spend three months forcing meet cutes and writing them up to inspire the screenwriter, which helps her get her writing groove back (she always wanted to be a screenwriter until the agent who hired her as an assistant told her she didn’t have what it takes). Throughout all of this, she manages to develop a friendship with a widower and his adorable seven year old daughter, who hang out in the coffee shop where she stages some of her meet cutes, all while being generally kind of appalling to her group of old friends who are always willing to drop everything to support her. Basically, Evie is often the worst, but I still found her to be a pretty engaging main character.