SYNOPSIS

After an amazing night, playing lead in a role he was the understudy for, Kal learns that he is no longer being sponsored and he will be due to leave Canada in a few months.

Miz doesn’t want to see him go, so she thinks of all the ways she could get him a sponsored so he can stay in Toronto. One of the ways includes him getting married.

What could happen?

RECAP AND REVIEW

Thank you NetGalley, Doubleday Canada/ Penguin Random House Canada and the author for an arc in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.

Out now! Happy release day!

This is currently a standalone contemporary romance book told in the first person of both Miz and Kal. It’s set in Toronto.

Miz and Kal met when she was sent by her mother to live in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia with her father. After time apart, Kal ends up moving to Canada and the two reconnected.

Miz is anti-marriage, has never wanted to be married, and it seems like commitment itself scares her. Her parents have an estranged relationship, where they are still married but live in different countries and are not together. Miz never wanted that type of headache.

Kal, on the other hand, values marriage and is a hopeless romantic. The person he was with from 15-26, he thought he was going to marry. Since they broke up, years ago, he hasn’t really put himself out there while he grieves the relationship.

Miz and Kal are long-term friends who seemed to be attracted to each other, but their love, to me, was more comforting and calming than fireworks. The type you don’t realize it’s there until it’s gone. For me, there’s nothing wrong with that and I enjoyed their playfulness with each other and the comfortability that comes with truly knowing someone else.

The side plot with the engagement ring was funny in the beginning because Miz was crashing out for no reason, but it got less funny as it went on because I don’t understand why things played out how they did with that and what she was afraid of. (Not her ring).

I enjoyed all the side characters and both of the character’s families. My favorite part was the trip they took.

I wasn’t a big fan of how things were resolved because I felt like both of them were in the wrong about certain things, but only one of them really took accountability for it. At times it felt like a miscommunication between them. This could also be a case though where the message wasn’t for me.

I love the title. It fits the story perfectly. There’s also some gems in here about life.

Read this for:

✈️ Marriage of convenience

✈️ Friends to lovers

✈️ Set in Canada

✈️ Childhood friends

✈️ Values Marriage x Anti-Marriage

✈️ Complicated family dynamics

OVERALL

Overall, I give this a 4.5 out of 5 stars. I don’t know what it was about this book, but I couldn’t put it down and I found myself thinking about it when I wasn’t reading it. Even though there are parts I didn’t like, I loved it overall, even though they both did the most at times. I recommend it if you want to read a book set outside of the US, that’s friends to lovers, where the leads get married for immigration papers.