Okay, so, it was both really good and then it sorta drove me crazy. I love that there was a clearly demisexual character and her coming to terms with what that meant for her. And I love love LOVE the setting and all that it encompasses in the book...just casually mentioning the view of the sea and knowing it's the Indian Ocean! Or the comments about the matchmakers that are so casual and commonplace!

But some stuff just made me crazy. Like, how does he still want to be with her when she is so oblivious??? And why does she think it's okay to mess with lives the way she does??? I should just get over it, but it bugged me the whole time. I'd say the 4 is generous, truly.

I tried so hard to love this book. It had cute/sweet vibe to it. Matchmaker gets her match that kind of thing. The right man was right there all along. The problem for me was there wasn’t much chemistry between the two main characters. They have a past but it is mired by misunderstandings. And it is just too hard to figure out why they don’t just have a conversation. I will try another Swati Hegde book, because the individual characters had charm. But the love story was not a match for me.

I overall enjoyed this romance - and as someone who is a=not a meber of the Indian/Indian-American community, I really appreciated the details in this book and the vivid imagery of Mumbai.

One small thing that bugged me throughout is that the protagonists' names are Jia and Jaiman (which read as Jia and Jiaman sometimes). Jia also is not the most likeable of characters at first, but that did not give me pause, as I knew this was a (loose) adaptation of Jane Austen's _Emma_.

The writing is bright and easy to read, and if you enjoy witty romances, this is a good one.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an eARC copy.

Match Me If You Can, a contemporary romance about a modern matchmaker and her lifelong friend, was a fun, bright, and romantic read! I didn't know going into reading this book that it was based on Jane Austen's Emma, but as a huge Austen fan, I felt like the parts of the story inspired by her were little easter eggs. I loved seeing how Swati Hedge took her creative liberties with such a well-loved story, still creating a fresh and new romance.

Jia and Jaiman were both such real and lovable characters. I loved seeing them grow into themselves and grow together throughout this book. While I loved their romance, in some ways, I was even more compelled by the other plots present throughout the book. The author did a great job balancing the romance along with these other parts of the story- it all flowed together so nicely and kept me wondering about what would happen in the end.

I also loved reading a book set in Mumbai! As someone who has never been to India, this made me feel so compelled to visit. I loved learning about various parts of the Indian culture that were introduced throughout this book.

All in all, a delightful, romantic, and heartwarming story. Congratulations to the author for such a fantastic debut novel! I can't wait to see what she puts out next.

Thank you to Netgalley, Swati Hedge, and Random House for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

A charming premise and wholesome friends-to-lovers romance. Two childhood friends navigate their feelings for one another as they struggle in their careers.

I enjoyed the setting of Mumbai, Jaiman’s recipes and cocktail concoctions, and the culinary school rivalry plot. I do not think the You’ve Got Mail-esque anonymous blog subplot was necessary and detracted from the story for me. The obliviousness of and constant miscommunication between the two leads made it difficult to root for them (I was however rooting for Charu and Manoj and Flora and Harish!).

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.

Match Me If You Can was so cute! I have not really read any romance novels that involve match makers so this was very nuie!

This was a cute slow burn, friends to lovers romance set in fast paced Mumbai. While the characters were relatable, I occasionally found myself irritated by Jai and her behavior. Thankfully, there is decent character development for her over the course of the story. I absolutely love the friends to lovers trope so I really enjoyed watching Jai and Jaiman's relationship grow, however I wanted more romance. Also, the slow burn was a bit too slow for me. I really enjoyed the matchmaking aspect to the story and use of the dual POV.

Overall, this was a sweet, fun, fast read that romance fans will enjoy.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing for the advanced copy.

Set in Mumbai, Jia's and Jaiman's story is a very slow burn romance between life long best friends. Both are millennials with big dreams. Jia wants to begin a modern matchmaking service that helps young people find love on their own terms, not their family's. Jaiman wants to make his pub a place where people can experience community. While Jia and Jaiman pine for each other, they let miscommunication and misunderstanding get in the way throughout the book. (This is a closed door romance and the main characters don't connect romantically before the end of the book.)

I was frustrated by Jia's character. While she wants to help people find their persons, she is clueless and sometimes presumptuous. She doesn't see the love that's in front of her; she misreads cues that someone is attracted to her, not her friend; she pushes her friend toward someone who doesn't really care based on factors like job and income.

The setting in bustling Mumbai adds spice to the story. I enjoyed the descriptions of the city, the food, and the clothing.

Thanks to the author and publisher for an advance copy. This is an honest review.

Picture this: it's a slow burn, teasing you with that classic "will they? won't they?" scenario that'll have you hooked from start to finish. Sure, some might say it takes its sweet time, but trust me, the love story is just too adorable to resist.

The characters are relatable and loveable. They across very authentic. Which made the angst that much more real and painful (in a good way!!)

Swati Hegde's writing—it's like a delicious addiction. Every page will have you squealing with joy, I promise. And what really makes this debut stand out is its unique Desi vibe. It's like a breath of fresh air in the world of American publishing, with Mumbai coming to life in such a beautiful way.

Definitely enjoyed this one!!

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House for this book!

Swati Hegde’s Match Me If You Can stars Jia Deshpande, a writer for Mumbai’s top women’s magazine. Stuck writing articles about finding “The One”, she channels her true feelings about relationships and finding romance into her anonymous blog, which is rapidly growing in popularity. On top of her blog and career, she’s balancing ultra-competitive family game nights, and growing feelings for her childhood friend. As of all that wasn’t enough, Jia has been tasked with playing matchmaker for a coworker to get her boss’s approval for the matchmaking column she’s been longing to write.
Jaiman Patil has known Jia since childhood, where they bonded playing while their fathers bonded over business. Now he's an honorary part of her family, ever since his own moved to America, leaving Jaiman behind to pursue his dream of running a local pub. As chaotic as life with the Deshpandes is, it's more a lot more love than he ever had growing up. It's also a lot to lose, so confessing his deep feelings for Jia is completely out of the question. When Jia's attempts at office matchmaking go awry, putting her friendships at risk, she must reevaluate her own thoughts on love.


This was such a cute read! Truthfully it was a bit slow for me at the beginning, but once I got past that I couldn’t put it down!
Friends to lovers is one of my favorite tropes, Emma is one of my favorite Austen stories, and that combined with Indian MCs and it being set in Mumbai… it’s like this book was made specifically for me!
The pacing was perfect (we love a slow burn!), and I adored the dual-POV.
Thank you to Swati Hegde for creating an absolutely stunning South Asian Jane Austen adaptation that I look forward to reading again and again 💜

Such a sweet and charming debut! Swati Hedge is a fresh new voice putting all our favorite romcom tropes together in this fresh and delightful story! I loved the Mumbai setting fans of the classing SRK Bollywood romcoms of the 90s will love this book!

The blurb of this book was what made me want to read it. I love a good friends-to-lovers romance that is filled with angst and longing. Especially set in Mumbai, I was so excited to read a story with South Asian characters that explored themes of family and matchmaking. Jia is an aspiring matchmaker who is currently unfulfilled by her job as a romance magazine writer. Jaiman is a pub-owner who struggles to keep his business afloat. Although the writing was easy to follow and flowed well, I had some problems with the story itself.

I'll start with the main characters. Both Jia and Jaiman are nepo-babies who come from affluent families and have cooks/maids waiting on them. While I can appreciate characters who realize their privilege, their background made it challenging to relate to the characters. Jia, after a broken heart, goes rampaging in a shopping mall, spending more money than I can ever imagine. It's hard to relate to her coping mechanism at all and she doesn't express any effort to resolve her emotions in a healthy way. Jaiman is more tolerable because if he fails his business, he has to move to the US to work for his rich dad. However, even then, he doesn't acknowledge how much of a privilege this is. They both stress about their career goals, worrying that they'll fail and not make it, without acknowledging the huge privilege they have as nepo-babies. Maybe this is a personal problem, but I could not relate to such characters.

In addition, Jia as a matchmaker was so meddlesome, presumptuous, and at times sabotaging to her clients. She is so stubborn that it was unbearable to root for her growth. I know she gets better and acknowledges this flaw but for 2/3 of the book, I wanted to scream at her. Jaiman also has this annoying inferiority complex about his abilities. He gets angry at his classmate for always beating him and he develops hatred for that person.

For a friend-to-lovers romance, these two are barely friends in my opinion. They don't know anything about one another. They don't communicate until the very ending which draws out this miscommunication trope that could've been resolved with one heartfelt conversation.

While I appreciate the dynamic characters and clear writing, I struggle to empathize with the characters and root for their happy ending,

This was a charming book! I felt like I was right in the setting, even without ever having been there. I personally found the MC a bit annoying at the beginning, but as she develops it's easy to fall in love with her.
I'm usually iffy on friends to lovers, because I find the tension to be lacklustre but I actually really enjoyed this book and was genuinely rooting for the pair.
The pacing was incredible. I have a friend that I think would adore this book as she's a huge Emma fan, and with this being a retelling I think she would absolutely love this book.

title: Match Me if You Can

author: Swati Hegde

publisher: Dell

publication date: 4 June 2024

pages: 304

peppers: 2 (on this scale)

warnings: alcohol-induced vomit, heavy drinking

summary: Jia is bored by her job writing a dumb romance advice column for a newspaper, so she funnels her passion into her successful anonymous blog and plans to open her own match-making business one day. Her family friend Jaiman is the only person with whom she's ever felt any sparks, but he's a playboy who's not interested in anything long term. She has started an email correspondence with one of the blog's followers who really seems to get her, but that could be anyone.

tropes:

friends-to-lovers
secret pining
oblivious about everyone's hearts, including her own
great friends
family connections

what I liked:

Since Austen's Emma is one of my favorite novels of all time, it was hard not to enjoy this Mumbai-set homage to that clueless (pun intended) heroine.
Both main  characters' voices and reasons for not telling/knowing their feelings.
The side-stories kept me interested.

what I didn’t like: n/a

overall rating: 5 (of 5 stars)

This book was cute! Jia kind of annoyed me in the beginning but she had some great development later on. I love a good friends to lovers romance so I really enjoyed their relationship development, but we needed MORE romance! More time together. I did love the dual POV. I’ve never read a matchmaker story so this was an interesting and new and fun aspect for me!

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing for the ARC! Pub date: June 4, 2024

*so i finished this yesterday and haven't stopped thinking about it so i'm changing the rating to 4, it's really cute and even though the romance wasn't the strongest the rest of the story was very good!*

how to feel, how to feel, how to feel...

this may just be the most frustrating romance book i have ever read. slow burns in books is something i usually really like but something about the slow burn in this book made me want to scream. i know for a fact that i let out a couple groans of frustration while reading. i feel very conflicted on if i truly enjoyed this book or not. some aspects really worked while others just fell very, very short.

jia... she had some character development and i'm very happy about that because she was driving me insane in the first half of this book. i think we discovered that match making romances are something i should avoid in the future because the meddling made me irrationally angry. jaiman was so lovely and low key heartbreaking. i felt satisfied by the ending simply because i wanted to see him happy, my man went through it in this book. the romance was very fine. i feel like all the other relationships felt more important because the romance only comes up in the last 8% of the book. all the platonic friendships, side character romantic relationships, and fatherly relationships were more entertaining than the main romance. we simply needed to see more of jia and jaiman. the love declaration was also slightly underwhelming which frustrated me, the hidden identity plot line could've been so much more satisfying and it just wasn't.

this was a very cute debut. i looked up the author and saw that she is also a type of dating expert which makes sense because the match making scenes in this book felt very knowledgeable. jaiman's pining was amazingly written and i am thrilled that we had his point of view because i have read like three romances recently that just don't have the mans pov and i was going insane. if you loooooove slow burns this romance should definitely be on you radar for when it comes out in june!!

*Thank you NetGalley for the ARC*

so this cute lil diddly is about an aspiring matchmaker, Jia, who works for a major magazine writing a romance column while also running an anonymous romance blog on the side. She plans to rocket her career to the next level by starting a matchmaking column at her job while also dealing with her newly rocky relationship with her lifelong best friend, Jaiman, and their growing affection for each other. this book was AMAZING and at times reminded me so much of Clueless (an all time classic). there were def some similar themes going on. i love love love the growing diversity in contemporary romance, and how it’s another art form that’s starting to reflect the world we actually live in! i was lucky enough to read this as an ARC through netgalley, but for anyone whose interest is piqued, this gem will be out around June 2024. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

💫4.7/5💫

Match Me If You Can by Swati Hegde is a fun, lighthearted, slow-burn, friends-to-lovers that provides a unique and modern twist. The story's pacing and romance can be slow at times; However, the author does a fantastic job with world-building and providing exciting side characters that keep readers engaged and interested. My one wish for this book would be to show more of the romance aspects and the FMC and MMC's relationship. I look forward to Swati's future work!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for sending me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was okay. I liked the setting and the characters were likable. The romance itself felt a little forced, like it was lacking the needed chemistry and tension for a good romance. It’s a clever concept though and I’ll be looking for more from Hegde to see if it’s done a little better with a different couple.

"Match Me If You Can" is a cute romance novel, written with compelling and intriguing language. It's a primarily friends-to-lovers, dual point-of-view book that's fun. It's basically like a modern Indian version of "You've Got Mail," IYKYK. It's fun, cute and frothy, definitely.