⭐⭐⭐
We Met in December
Rosie Curtis 390 pages | Published by William Morrow
Determined to start really living her life the way she wants, Jess moves into a houseshare in London at the offer of a good friend. On her first night in the house, Jess meets her new roommate Alex, and can see the possibility of a romance between them. But after Jess returns from a skiing trip with her girlfriends, she discovers that Alex is in a new relationship - with their other roommate, Emma. Over the next year, Jess and Alex navigate their feelings for each other while trying to survive in London.
Something I really loved about this book is its narrative of starting over. Both Jess and Alex find themselves living in this house because they've decided to start living the lives that they really want - Jess in her new publishing career, and Alex back in school to become a nurse. It's refreshing to see a story that doesn't reinforce the idea that everyone picks their life path in their early twenties and is perfectly happy.
A small side note - I love Alex. He's that classic good guy and honestly, the endearing care-taker character is right up my street.
About fifty pages into this one, I really wasn't sure if I was going to like it. Coming off of One Day in December, I was ready for a powerful connection followed by intense near-misses, but overall it felt very low stakes to me. I could tell that there was chemistry between Jess and Alex, but never really felt it. I was happy that this turned out to be dual POV - at the beginning, Jess was reading very dramatic - I know she has a love of rom-coms and the like - but at first I got the sense that this book was going to be nearly 400 pages of a girl complaining that she was in the friend zone. We needed Alex's side of the story to know that Jess was't alone in her attraction.
I also thought something in Rosie Curtis' writing style was quite repetitive. It felt like beating a dead horse at some points - the POV character would tell the reader something, the POV character would tell another character the same thing, and then the reader was told one more time - just in case we didn't get it. I'd rather be trusted to pick up on the backstory via dialogue than read the same bit of information over and over again.
I know this all sounds a bit negative, but overall I did find this to be an enjoyable read. It was light and cute, and while not necessarily a "holiday read," its still a great option to pick up around Christmas.
Comments