This cover, y’all, I cannot deal with the cuteness. And it’s a perfect representation of the book inside, filled with honest conversations about mental health, hilarious characters, and a delightful friends-to-lovers, opposites-attract romance.

Quinn and Tarek were friends as children because of their parents’ businesses – Quinn’s family runs a wedding planning business while Tarek’s does catering. While they spent a lot of time together, they never hung out outside of those events, but Quinn still managed to develop a crush on Tarek, which culminates the summer before he goes off to college. After watching his “grand gestures” with his various past girlfriends, she finally confesses that she has a crush for him in an email…. and then he completely ghosts her. With him back for the summer and working many of the same events, it’s awkward, especially since Quinn thought she was finally over the crush (spoiler: she’s not). But in trying to resurrect their friendship, they end up opening up to each other, and maybe.. jut maybe, that unrequited crush isn’t so unrequited after all.

“I did like kissing him. But I’ve seen so many miserable brides, miserable grooms, miserable families putting on a show because they think they’re supposed to. I’ve seen the expressions my parents wear with their clients. None of it is real, and I already do enough pretending.
I learned from my parents like I learned how to bustle a wedding dress: love is a performance.”


The book is told solely from Quinn’s first person POV, and she was a character you could really root for. The thought of a teenage wedding harpist was, honestly, one of the things that really interested me in this book, and I was glad to see how much it played a part in her arc. With high school over, she’s looking forward to her first year of college… or at least she would be if her parents hadn’t hand-picked all of her courses in order to make her a better employee for the family business. Problem is, Quinn doesn’t want to join the family business. After watching her parents separate temporarily as a child (and then never talking about it again) she has a dim view of romance, especially her own chances for it. But her family’s life is tied so inextricably to the business – their “family brunches” are actually used to update everyone on work hurdles – that she doesn’t know how to fit into the family without being a part of the business, and it’s not really like she knows what she wants to do with her life anyway. So rather than spending her last summer before college hanging out with her friends, she’s unenthusiastically playing the harp or trying to live up to her parents’ high expectations at various cake tastings, bridal fittings, and weddings. But a chance encounter at a wedding opens a new door to her, something she’s actually passionate about, and telling her family she doesn’t want to work with them becomes more pressing.

Tarek’s the complete opposite of Quinn in many ways. He loves working with his family, especially doing the desserts, and his main concern is convincing them that he could handle more. His love of baking really shown through in the book and I loved his passion. Tarek’s parents got together due to a grand gesture, and for Tarek, love is supposed to be big and splashy. But he’s a great friend (he saves Quinn desserts! *swoon*), and he’s very invested into rescuing the friendship between him and Quinn. Unlike previously, though, their friendship goes deeper, and they start talking about their hopes and aspirations (or lack of them), and their new closeness leads to a romantic relationship. They have differing ideas about how romance “works” and, unlike other books, the hurdles they had to overcome felt evenly balanced.

“We’re all hurting, Quinn. In different ways, some that we can treat with medication and therapy and some only with time. And some in ways that might never heal. Sometimes the good outweighs the bad. Sometimes those great times are so fucking great that they make the bad times a little easier to handle.”


There’s quite a bit of rep in this book. From a mental health standpoint, Quinn has anxiety and OCD, which she treats with a combination of therapy and medication, and she talks about it a lot in the book. I thought her description of OCD was excellent and really helped me understand the thought process behind it. Tarek also had some mental health struggles, though they’re a bit spoilery, so all I’ll say is that I felt like it was handled well. Their discussions about their mental health are so honest and accepting and yes, please, more of this in YA, thanks. Quinn’s also Jewish, though her family isn’t particularly observant, but it’s something that’s woven into her family life, as is the fact that Tarek’s Muslim. Neither of their religions is a pain point, it’s just part of their identities, and I loved that.

Overall, I very much enjoyed how sweet and fun this book was, along with the stellar mental health rep. I’ll definitely be picking up this author’s backlist!

I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Quinn is imperfect. She has spent so much time building up walls to protect herself that she didn't realize that she was also keeping everyone else out. This has lead to her putting up a pretense made from what everyone else expects of her-- her parents, her sister, the boys she has fun with, society-- that she doesn't even realize that she has no sense of self.
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This story might be focused on Quinn and Tareks love story on the surface (which is very good) but deep down this is a story about trust and honesty: Trusting others, trusting yourself, and most importantly, being honest about what you want in life.
I think that this is so incredibly relatable, not only to teens getting ready to go out in to the world, but also for people in their 20's, and even beyond, who are still trying to figure their life out. Cause let's be honest, even adults are just out here wing it.

This book has so much representation, and honestly, some things I didn't even consider needing it until it was on the page in front of me. There's also T3 character cameos, if you extra encouragement to pick this up.

Quinn has OCD, and reflects on the hurtful passivity we throw the diagnosis around in conversation. OCD does not equate to being organized. Tarek has eczema and is embarrassed, not for having it, but for the stares and reactions it draws. In my little family of 3, we have eczema and plaque psoriasis, and it felt nice to be acknowledged.

There's also depression rep, sex positivity, and Jewish characters written from an authentic place, as Rachel is Jewish.

Solomon knocked it out of the park with this one per usual. The diverse cast, mental health representation, and Seattle setting captured my heart. And her little Easter egg with characters from her last YA book? LOVED IT. So glad to catch up with those characters a bit. 4.5 ⭐️ from me and so many feels

Happy Book Birthday to WE CAN’T KEEP MEETING LIKE THIS by the always incredible Rachel Lynn Solomon!

In April, I was able to request the book as a Jewish own voices reviewer and I was thrilled beyond words when I got approved for a copy! While Solomon is an author I only discovered in 2021, she has quickly become a favorite and I’ve read almost all of her books in the past few months. I have loved every single one of them - and this was no exception!

WCKMLT follows Quinn - a just graduated from high school Jewish teen with OCD a who is over being a part of the family business (a wedding planning company) as she tries to stay just friends with benefits with Tarek - an Egyptian Muslim college student who works with his parents for their catering company. Tarek and Quinn have known each other for ages and while there’s been something brewing between them for awhile, Quinn has trouble believing in love and Tarek is all about the big grand gestures. Solomon shines in her character development and creation of the most true and honest characters you’ll find in just about any book. I absolutely loved spending time with Quinn and Tarek, and Quinn’s best friend Julia and her girlfriend Noelle, and of course - the cameo by Rowan and Neil literally made me squeal out loud!!

Ultimately, this was Quinn’s story. And as she worked to learn more about herself, I loved that Solomon let us come along for the ride. As always, the Jewish own voices rep that Rachel brought to this story was fantastic and I loved seeing how she wove different types of observances of Judaism into this book. I’m so glad I got the opportunity to read this one, and I can’t wait to see what Rachel does next!!

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read and review this eARC. All opinions are my own.

Quinn Berkowitz is a bit of a cynic and a harpist for her parents’ wedding planning business. Tarek Mansour has known her forever since he works for his parents’ catering business. They haven’t talked in a year, since she confessed her crush and he left for college… This summer should be fun, right?

I have now read three Rachel Lynn Solomon books (two YA) and I seriously can’t get enough. The characters are so well written, dynamic, and diverse. They feel like people I want to know and love in real life. Plus, I always love how much I can relate to the Jewish characters. I’ve never seen myself in a book as much as I do when I read these books. Not feeling Jewish enough? That’s totally me.

The main characters are young and they have a lot to figure out about themselves but they discuss serious topics in such a mature way. They openly share their struggles with anxiety, OCD, and depression and it’s exactly what I want to see in a book for young adults. However, I might not go handing this any young teen/preteen because it does get a little sexy (not that I’m complaining).

Tarek and Quinn are a couple you’ll root for from the very start. They have somewhat of a history and they’re finally starting to open up to each other for real. I also really love that Tarek is an Egyptian Muslim and Quinn is Jewish. We need more of this in books!

If you haven’t read one of Rachel’s books yet, please please do! Even if YA isn’t your typical thing, I always feel like Rachel’s YA is a little more adult friendly. This book is on shelves today, so give it a shot!

Thank you to Simon Teen and Netgalley for my copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I am late on the Rachel Lynn Solomon fan train. I know she has been a round writing books for a while but I didn’t “find” her until 2020’s book Today, Tonight, Tomorrow (TTT). I mean I had her books on my TBR but I just never read one. But after reading TTT I became hooked and a massive fan. And after reading We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This, she is now an auto-buy for me because We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This was a chef’s kiss of a book and filled my heart with so much joy and love.

We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This is the story of Quinn and Tarek. For year’s Quinn and Tarek’s families have worked together side by side as wedding planner and caterer. Because of these these two have gotten close. That is until Quinn tells Tarek she has a crush on him before he leaves for college and everything the tow of them built as friends falls apart. So when Tarek is back for the summer to help his family out things between him and Quinn are awkward to say the least. Add that to the other secret Quinn is keeping and they are both in for a summer they never imagined.

The thing about We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This that I loved the most was how Solomon managed to write a story that balanced the fun aspects of crushes and fall in love with a friend with heavier things like mental health (Quinn has OCD and Tarek has depression) and leaving your family to pursue your dreams. Solomon flawlessly told the struggles both Quinn and Tarek faced handling their well being but managed to add just the right amount of fun and cuteness. It made both of them feel real and relatable. I think that is why the two of them have stuck with me so long. They both felt like really special characters and you can’t help but fall for them. And it didn’t hurt seeing them fall for each other. 🙂

In the end, I can’t stop thinking about We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This. It was the perfect young adult book that hit on everything I love. No matter how much time has passed since I read it it is still there in the back of my mind and I think it will be there for you too. This is not one for you to sleep on. Definitely add this to her TBR and go out and buy a copy today!

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.

This one is good, really good. "We Can't Keep Meeting Like This" is a young adult romance between Quinn and Tarek, who each work for their family businesses in the wedding industry. Tarek works for his parents catering company, and loves baking. Quinn is graduating high school but her parents treat her like a fully fledged adult, drafting her into their wedding planning company. They meet and become friends at the weddings they each work at, and the history between them is well established fairly early on. The summer that the book takes place is the summer after Quinn graduates high school and after Tarek's freshman year of college, so they're in a state of transition in their lives and each trying to figure out things.

The book covers mental health struggles, the pressure to figure out what to do with the rest of your life, reconciling the perceptions of romance that you get from your own parents love story with reality, navigating the relationship with your parents as a semi-adult, as well as how to talk about sex with a partner. I loved the inclusion of all of these issues, as well as the conversations about religion that Tarek (Muslim) and Quinn (Jewish) have. It is so refreshing to see fairly secular Jewish representation, I love it.

This is everything you want from a young adult romance, with a nice balance between the light fun aspects and the heavier topics. I just adored it, I kept smiling while reading it and want to press it into everyone's hands.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for Young Readers for the advanced copy, as well as Netgalley. It is out tomorrow (June 8), so go pick it up wherever books are sold.

Book: We Can't Keep Meeting Like This
Author: Rachel Lynn Solomon
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// And sometimes the world is terrible, and love stories...they keep making it feel less heavy.//
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Blurb:
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
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🌼 When I got the e-arc I was very very excited. I hadn't read anything by the author by then but did hear lots of amazing things about her books.
🌼 The book features Quinn, who is a character with flaws. She suffers from OCD and anxiety. The author did an amazing job in explaining what it actually means to have anxiety and OCD. The book also discusses depression. With all those serious topics concerned, the author handled them very well .
🌼 I loved the protagonists, they were so fit for the book with such amazing characters.
🌼 The book is sex positive and also features diverse characters.
🌼 The book is so warm and fuzzy❤️
At last, the COVER😱. I absolutely adore books with pretty covers. And this book is one of them. Just see the shade of Purple (*omg*)✨
Oh! How I wish to hold a physical copy of it soon❤️..
🌼 I'll definitely recommend this book to everyone. You can't miss such an amazing book!

ARC provided for review by NetGalley and Simon and Schuster publishing for an honest review of the book.

Quinn is a recent high school graduate that works at the family wedding planning business, Borrowed and Blue (B+B), with her parents and older sister, Asher. Quinn is struggling with a lot, mainly the plan her parents have created that will have her studying business in college and then joining B+B fulltime. She no longer enjoys the work and in fact is miserable working the wedding scene. She is also still trying to come to terms with her parents brief separation when she was 8, that no one ever discussed with her. This separation has completely shaped Quinn's view on love and romance, leaving her sarcastic and cynical to the whole thing. This is only worsened by the fact that Tarek, the son of the caterers the B+B regularly use, blew off Quinn's confession of interest. When Tarek returns from college, all of Quinn's struggles come to a head and she needs to face things head on or continue to ignore them and suffer.

The story was heartfelt and honest in many ways. Solomon doesn't shy away from addressing the mental health of her two main characters, Quinn with OCD and Tarek with clinical depression. The honest discussion that Quinn and Tarek have is one of the more open conversation about mental health that I have read. Solomon also explores the struggle of how Quinn processes her future plans. She doesn't know what she wants for her future and this makes her put even more pressure on herself to figure it out. Tarek has his own struggles as he grapples with his depression diagnosis, tries to earn more responsibilities in the catering company and understand what romance and love really is.

Quinn and Tarek have cute moments, but at times it's clear that they are both trying too hard in opposite ways, Quinn trying to keep Tarek at a distance and Tarek trying to romance the heck of Quinn even when she doesn't want it. Their relationship was a constant push and pull that often took away from the actual relationship. While the romance is fine, I wouldn't really agree that this is a rom-com and the book truly shines as an exploration of family, the future and mental health.

We Can't Keep Meeting Like This by Rachel Lynn Solomon (out now!) is a YA romcom
featuring Quinn Berkowitz, a wedding harpist who doesn't believe in love and Tarek Mansour, a cater-waiter and hopeless romantic.

While I've read a lot of "Jew books" over the years they've always been historical, never contemporary and y'all, this book was an absolute delight. Within two pages I was transported back to my 10th grade confirmation class in the best way possible.

There's so much to love here. It's got this super organic diversity woven throughout that is so reflective of reality. Quinn is Jewish and has OCD and anxiety. Tarek is Egyptian and has eczema and depression. They're both in therapy and medicated (in this house we stan taking your meds 🙌). Quinn's bff is Jewish and bi, and many of the couples getting married over the summer are queer and/or interracial.
The mutual pining is *chef kiss*. It's also quite steamy for YA, and conversations around sex and intimacy are always healthy.
And the cherry on top, our heroine is an existentially struggling young artist taken under the wing of an older mentor, maybe my favorite niche trope of all time.

WCKMLT is sweet and wholesome and funny, and reading it in the days leading up to my stay in a psych ward was the exact balm my sad lil soul needed. 4/5⭐

We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This is my third time reading Rachel Lynn Solomon and once again she has captured my heart with her relatable storylines and her wonderfully complex characters and their equally complex relationships.

Quinn Berkowitz is headed to college in the fall. She has gotten into a great school but doesn’t seem all that excited about her future. Why? Well, her parents have basically mapped it out for her, from deciding that she will be a business major, choosing her courses for her, and making the assumption that when she graduates, she will join them in their family wedding planning business. Quinn hasn’t corrected them in this assumption because she doesn’t want to hurt their feelings, but it has left her feeling trapped and frustrated. To make matters worse, her longtime crush, Tarek Mansour, is back home after his first year away at college and Quinn doesn’t really want to see him because of an embarrassing confession she made to him when he left for college the previous fall. Avoiding Tarek is pretty much impossible though as his parents run the catering business that Quinn’s parents frequently partner up with for their weddings. So basically Quinn has set herself up for a summer of awkwardness.

I think most readers will find Quinn to be a likable relatable character and will sympathize with the situation she finds herself in. None of us want to disappoint our parents and I know, like Quinn, I would probably put off a difficult and painful conversation like that for as long as I possibly could. Her situation with Tarek is probably going to be equally relatable because there are plenty of us out there who have done embarrassing things in front of someone we were crushing on. Quinn’s situation with Tarek made me especially sympathetic toward her because she has major trust issues when it comes to love and putting herself out there because her parents temporarily separated when she was much younger and that separation really messed with Quinn’s head when she was little and continues to do so to this day because her parents have never talked about it.

Speaking of Tarek though, what a sweetheart this boy is. He’s a hopeless romantic who likes to bake wedding cakes and who loves Sleepless in Seattle. He is the softest of soft boys and it’s clear that he has feelings for Quinn. I was hardcore rooting for him to break through the walls Quinn has put up around her own heart and I really enjoyed watching the ups and downs as their relationship evolved.

As much as I enjoyed the romantic storyline between Quinn and Tarek, Quinn’s journey to figure out her place in this world and the future of her relationship with her parents was what really made We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This such a compelling read for me.

As many of you might have seen across all my platforms, I stepped away from reading and any form of blogging. With how 2020 was going I needed a breather, I had also lost the spark that kept me reading and loving books. Don't get me wrong I didn't hate them, I was just in the biggest book slump of my life (so far). It was about six months. I only read manga and that's about it. 

One of my amazing book friends though, she always sends me Jewish YA books that will be coming out soon. Mostly because I've ranted about how there are no Jewish main characters in YA, that don't involve WW2 or falling in love with a Nazi. There is sadly a huge lack of fiction for what I've always been looking for, though in the last few years there are more amazing books trickling in. It was no surprise that my friend sent me all the information about WCKMLT, and how the author was looking for Jewish readers to read an ARC of her upcoming novel. Even though I was in this dark deep hole of a book slump, I peeked my head out to see if I could get a chance to read this book early. I'm still amazed I was allowed a copy, but I am so incredibly happy for the chance (it really felt like some light broke through the darkness and a hand reached in to pull me out). 

Now, what you all are probably waiting for after many months without my lovely reviews and taking forever to get to the review at this point. We Can't Keep Meeting Like This, is the book that brought me to life. After all these months of trying again and again to get back into reading and wondering if I would even love it again-this book brought me back. Ever since reading this book, it has been like an avalanche of non stop reading. It feels as if there is a monster or some type of force of nature inside of me that can't let go of a book for even a second. Reading WCKMLT had me obsessed by the first few pages, I've never read anything by Rachel Lynn Solomon before (which is a travesty and means I've been an idiot for far too long). When I had the absolute pleasure of meeting her a few years ago at a book signing in Seattle, where in which we had a conversation about Jewish representation in YA books. See I told you I was an idiot (though, I have now bought every single one of her titles so I can read even more of her writing while I wait for her next book Weather Girl).

Back to the book-I have never felt so seen in a book before, as I have when reading about Quinn's story. The pressure, the anxiety, living in Washington, and the feelings that come when you just have no clue where you want your live to go at all. I gotta say, the first two quotes I put below from the book about being uncomfortable in a church? I've been there, I've basically been the only Jewish in my school district for a very long time and have gone to a church one time in my life. I just kept thinking they were going to kick me out and yell "she doesn't even go here! " just like in Mean Girls. So yes, I loved this book. I loved the descriptions of food. Many of which I have written down because now I must eat them and find a cute Jewish boy to make them for me too. To the absolute beauty of the harp and how they are made. Rachel Lynn Solomon I now blame you for making me a crazy person for watching videos on the craftsmanship of harps being made and listening to them, it is hypnotizing.

Aside from food, and harps, I loved how Jewish this book was. I know that's a strange thing to say or to even think about, but its true. Even if your not Jewish reading We Can't Keep Meeting Like This, doesn't make you feel left out, because it explains anything you don't know about in simple terms without dragging down the story or over explaining. This was a great help because even I didn't know everything in this, I may be Jewish but my family isn't as traditional as we could be. 

Quinn is a character that has faults, she's not perfect and she doesn't have some grand master plan by the end of the book and that's ok. That's what life is, you can only take the days as they come and make your way from there. That also goes for Tarek, both him and Quinn have a lot to work through future wise and mental health wise. This of course leads me to my other favorite thing about this book, the mental health. This is the biggest factor in WCKMLT, our characters are flawed but not by their mental health, because that's not a flaw. It's just who we are and there's nothing wrong with that. But, sometimes we do need help and an outlet, such as talking to someone who could help. As someone was has struggled with metal health, figuring out where my life is headed, and explaining to my family that we have to talk about things (mental health being number one). My heart went out to both Quinn and Tarek. They are these flawed people, just like us because its normal not to have a plan about what you want to do, its normal to stress, its normal to have anxiety and mental health problems. This book makes you feel everything these two characters go through, it makes you feel as if you are seeing to friends face the same thing s you go through, it also makes you feel okay that you have no clue what your going to do.

Okay, before I finish this terrible rambling review (as you can tell I'm rusty and still the same as always). We have to talk about the swoon. The moments between these two, I tell you. My goodness, I was smiling and crying for the both of them. But I do have be a bit in-between both their view points on grand gestures. I'm not for the big blow out like Tarek, on that Quinn and I can agree, but I do like the small grand gestures of love, or as Tarek says, its the person who makes it grand. That stole my heart, even now my poor heart can't even with the sweetness. Because even though I have said multiple times in this review and I'm going to say it again, these two are messy but still figuring it out. And that's fine because they have time, just like we all do - to fall in love, get it wrong, get it right, find our passion in life and what we want to peruse. So, just like Quinn and Tarek nd their relationship (and the cuteness , the sweetness and messy-ness), I'm finally going to end my review here at the not so perfect end, where I'm still figuring it out. But, please do yourself a favor and go buy this book on on June 8th (2021) and read it as slow as you can to savor every minute of it.

Favorite quote(s): 

I'm feeling about as out of place as I usually do as a Jew in church, which is to say, considerably.

While I've never felt wholly welcome in a church, I haven't yet burst into flame inside one. There's no one narrowing their eyes at me, wondering what I'm doing here, telling me I don't belong.

of course I know harps aren't used only for weddings, that it's not only old ladies and baby angels who play them, but I've never heard them sound like this, wild and feral and furious. 




I volunteer to head back first- since he's, uh, not quite ready- and before I do, he pulls me close one more time and kisses my forehead. A soft sweep of his lips. somehow, that's the one that feels the most dangerous.

Sometimes I feel like I'm letting down "my people" or whatever. I don't know. I'm not a very good Jew, I guess.

It's not that I'm depressed all the time, he amends. The therapy and medication have helped so much. It's just made me wonder if that future I've pictured...if it's something I'm going to eventually fuck up for myself. If I'll never get to have it for no other reason than my shit brain chemistry.

this sweet boy who bakes sweet things.

there's this dangerous sweetness in his words that nearly breaks me in half.

With my body half-beneath the curtain , I decide I shall hide under for the rest of my life. This is my new home. The paintings will be my only friends. It will be a good life, a simple life.

In different ways, some that we can treat with medication and therapy and some only with time. And some in ways that might never heal. Sometimes the good outweighs the bad. Sometimes those great times are so fucking great that they make the bad times a little easier to handle.

Whatever it becomes, I don't have to know yet what it means. I have time. everyone's been telling me I have the time to fall in love, to discover who I want to spend the rest of my life with. But its not just a who. Its a what, too.

When you're in love, you want to spend time with that person not just on your good days, but your in-between days and your bad days too.

It's no about the gestures, he says. The gesture doesn't mean anything if the couple isn't right for each other. Its about the person. A swallow, and then, as his knee taps mine; you make it grand.

Quinn’s parents own and run Borrowed+Blue, a wedding planning business. It’s their lifeblood, their passion. She helps them, planning and coordinating various different wedding services and duties alongside her sister, Asher. Asher loves the wedding business, going to school to earn a business degree and then joining B+B right away. Quinn isn’t so sure that’s what she wants. In fact, as her parents choose her college courses for her and talk about her joining them permanently, she wants to run for the hills. Her complicated relationship with romance is partially to blame for the urge to run away. She doesn’t go for the romance, for the grand gestures she sees performed on a practically daily basis. Quinn sees them as performative and fake and she can’t bear to be led on like that because it feels like a lie. Still, that doesn’t stop her from falling for Tarek, a childhood friend and son of B+B’s favorite caterers, Mansour’s. They’re constantly thrown together because they work the same weddings and Quinn can’t help but feel attraction for him, especially now that he’s back from his freshman year of college, somehow more handsome than ever. But before he left, she confessed her feelings for him, only to be ghosted for almost an entire year, leading up to their reunion at a wedding. The feelings are still there and Tarek somehow has feelings for her, too. But Quinn just can’t commit, her issues with romance and relationships rearing their ugly head as she struggles to figure out what she wants from life, and from Tarek.

The characters in this book are top notch. They are absolutely compelling and alive on the page, especially Quinn. She’s hilarious, so quippy and fun, as well as intelligent and mature, well spoken and put together. Even though she has no idea what she wants, she starts to take control of her life, finally saying yes to some things and following her heart, even when her mind is telling her to stick with the family business of weddings. She begins to explore her love of playing the harp, including actually making harps, not just playing them. Tarek, Quinn’s love interest, is just as well fleshed out. I very much appreciate the neurodivergence in them both, with Quinn and her OCD and anxiety and Tarek and his depression. They both attend therapy and are on medication, but both acknowledge that medication is not a cure all, that it is a welcome crutch they both depend on. Though both main love interests are not queer, Quinn’s best friend Julia is. Plus, B+B puts on several queer weddings, not just a token gay couple like so many other forms of media have. I love it and would have only loved it more if the main characters had been queer as well.

There is also quite a bit of sex positivity, not just picture perfect experiences, but awkward ones and disappointing ones, too. There is conversation and confessions regarding disappointing first times, and honest conversations about preferences. No one is shamed for having sex, either. The actual intimate scenes are mostly fade to black, but things are implied, so keep this in mind if that bothers you!

Despite the fact that much of the novel focuses on B+B, few weddings are explained in detail, even the moments Quinn claimed to look forward to. The planning and such seems rushed and Quinn seems very uninvolved. It is mentioned that she helped plan such and such thing, but I don’t see it on the page so when it comes down to the event itself, I found it hard to believe she was involved at all, if that makes sense. Though she is thoroughly uninterested in wedding planning because of past trauma, she is very skilled at it and I would have liked to see her prowess. Of course, much of her wedding planning time is taken up by Tarek, and her visits to a local harp shop.

I love how convoluted Quinn’s thinking is. Her inner monologue is so insightful into her feelings and actions, that I was drawn into the story so easily. The writing is so funny and quippy, with so many honest and embarrassing and awkward moments, so true to life. I also liked the inclusion of Quinn’s faith; she’s Jewish, about as good a Jew as I am, honestly. She eats pork and attends synagogue during the most important days only, though she’s more involved in the community. But not so much during the events of the book. There was a bit of discussion revolving around her religion in reference to weddings, as well as to Asher’s husband to be, who is more strict than Quinn’s family is. It was a good level of background religion, enough that I wasn’t going to forget she was Jewish.

There are many serious conversations. About sex, about anxiety and depression and OCD, about family, about past trauma, about your place in the world, about high expectations, about not knowing what the hell you’re doing and doing stuff anyway. It’s perhaps a bit too mature at times, with how well spoken both Quinn and Tarek are. I couldn’t imagine being so well spoken at their age; I definitely wasn’t. Still, the messages are good and something worth reading several times over, if only to remember that it’s okay.

If you want a romance between a pessimistic cynic and serial romantic, this book would be perfect. Throw in sex positivity, neurodivergence, and some serious wedding drama, and you’ve got yourself a perfect read. It was such a fast paced story, easy to sit down and read in one sitting. I held on the entire time, wondering if Quinn would ever tell her parents she didn’t want their vision of her future, if she would choose romance and get together with Tarek, if she would figure out what she wanted to do with her future. All questions are answered, the story wrapping up well. I would recommend this book to people who want mostly fluff, with a little angst to move things along. Fans of Nicola Yoon, Emily Henry, Jennifer Niven, Casey McQuiston, and others I can’t remember right now will likely enjoy this book as well!

Plot: I love summer books and I love wedding themed books, so the moment I read the summary for this book I knew I had to read it! And I really enjoyed it! I felt happy for Quinn, when she began opening up, and being honest about her emotions. And I loved the discussions of mental health in this book!

Characters: All of the characters were excellent, and I love how Quinn's family played such a big role. I liked her harp lessons with Maxine. (I didn't know much about harps before this book, so that was fun to learn more about them!) Tarek and Quinn's relationship was sweet.

The Cover: I really like it!

Overall: This was the first Rachel Lynn Solomon book I've read, and I know it won't be my last! I can definitely see why so many people love her books, and I know I'm going to read more of them.

I received an e-ARC of this book from the publisher.

Rachel Lynn Solomon not only has such heart in her stories, but she is mindful to always include representation and diversity through faith, race, LBGTQ+ relationships and normalizing mental health. This has a great YA plot with an adorable age appropriate romance, family issues and feeling a little lost with what the future holds at age 18. The story shows how family issues at any age can continue to impact family members. Fans of the author will certainly enjoy this book. If you haven’t read one by her, add one of her books to your TBR!

I absolutely love Rachel Lynn Solomon, so I was expecting to absolutely love We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This. And there were a lot of things about it I loved. I thought the characters were great. The writing was fun. I loved the wedding planner backdrop, the religious representation, and the representation of mental health.

But I almost think there was too much going on. Between Quinn’s OCD and Tarek’s depression and Quinn’s search for a purpose and harp making and her tension with her family and Tarek’s desire to get the chance to make a wedding cake. There was a lot to juggle and I never exactly bought into their connection as a couple. On top of that I kept feeling like they were going to have some deeper discussions about religion and their mental health. They kept walking right up to the line and then not diving all the way in.

My other issue was the fact that Quinn’s lack of faith in love stemmed from her parents separating 10 years ago for six months. I’m not saying someone couldn’t have that reaction, but I had trouble connecting with it. It seemed more like a reason to have faith in love since her parents were still together.

I definitely plan to read Solomon’s 2022 books. She’s still one of my absolute favorite authors, but I just didn’t connect to this one the same way I did to Today Tonight Tomorrow. Maybe my expectations were too high since that is one of my all time favorite books. I won’t post this review anywhere else, but I did post highlights from an author talk on zoom to help promote the book.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to read this one!

There's something about the emotions that certain books evoke that makes it hard to write about them. It's as if no amount of putting words together and endlessly rephrasing things will truly convey the way the book made you feel, so why bother? But I'm going to give it my best shot anyway.

We Can't Keep Meeting Like This follows Quinn and Tarek over a summer of weddings that they work together. It's about the nature of romance, the importance of communication, and figuring out what you do (and don't) want to do with your life. It has its share of too-cute-to-handle rom-com moments, but it also plays with your emotions in unexpected ways.

Anyone who keeps up with what I read knows that it's no surprise I loved this. I've given all of Rachel Lynn Solomon's books 5 stars, and count them among my favorites. They've each stayed with me in their own way. And I can already feel this one settling deep in my heart. I can easily see myself loving it even more when I reread it.

In case it wasn't clear, I highly recommend this book. I can't wait for more people to read it and love it as much as I did.

We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This is a young adult contemporary novel about a newly graduated 18 year old and the summer before college. It has coming of age material along with family drama and romance.

Like her previous novel Today Tonight Tomorrow Rachel Lynn Solomon tells the story of a teenage girl and the emotional turmoil of the summer before college. Quinn Berkowitz is cynical about love and romance AND she’s also a reluctant member of her parent’s wedding business. She’s only put herself out there one time by sending an email to her childhood friend Tarek Mansour telling him of her feelings only to have him ghost her for a year. When Tarek is back in town on his college summer break the two will be thrown together working for their parents at various weddings around Seattle.

This is more than just a light contemporary YA romance as both characters struggle with mental health issues, family, career and trying to have an authentic connection with another person. Tarek is fond of big attention getting romantic gestures and Quinn is only comfortable keeping things physical and easy. She’s also frustrated with the expectations of her parents and fearing that her refusal to join the family business will add stress to their marriage and make it difficult for her to have a relationship with any of them.

I appreciated all of Rachel Lynn Solomon’s additions of diversity to the cast of characters. Tarek is Muslim but also Egyptian, French and American. He also suffers from depression and has eczema. Quinn is Jewish and has OCD and anxiety. Her best friend is bisexual and in a relationship with another young woman. There is also more of the sex positivity that we saw in Today Tonight Tomorrow with straightforward descriptions of intimacy and frank conversations.

I enjoyed the addition of the harp as Quinn’s instrument as it is an object I don’t know a lot about and loved the background of Seattle. I sometimes struggled Quinn and her refusal to participate in the boyfriend/girlfriend model we’ve come to expect. In contrast, Tarek almost seemed too good to be true and I didn’t always believe that he’d not just take advantage of the no strings attached intimacy he was being offered and be happy to be off the hook when it came to a relationship. I might be more cynical than Quinn (but I’m also a lot older so I’ve earned it).

Overall this is a often humorous and angsty novel about a young woman who has personal struggles and is trying to find her way.

3.75 rounded up to 4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️