Bubbling up with Helena

• Title: Someone Like You
• Author: Meredith Schorr
• Publisher: Forever
• Release Date: 7/25/23
• Genre: Contemporary Fiction
• Age Range: Adult
• Rating: ★★★★
• Publisher’s Summary:  Two childhood rivals are forced to work together to plan their parents’ anniversary party in “this pitch-perfect enemies-to-lovers rom-com.” ( BookPage) New Yorker Molly Blum knows everything about her lifelong nemesis, Jude Stark. With their families so close, they should have been best friends. Instead, she thinks he’s a too-charming slacker, and he thinks she’s allergic to fun. After years of one-upping each other’s pranks (chocolate-dipped cat treats are not as delicious as they appear), one high school joke went too far, and they stopped speaking completely. But now that they’re supposed to help plan a massive party for their parents—together—there’s no better time to resume their war. And it is on. Only somewhere between all the sniping and harmless hijinks, a reluctant friendship develops, along with an unexpected spark of sexual tension. It might have to do with the fact that she’s been dating Jude-lookalikes and he’s been dating Molly doppelgangers. Or the fact that neither of them is nearly as horrible as they thought. All Molly and Jude know is that they’ve mastered the art of hating each other. Falling in love, on the other hand, is a whole new battlefield.

You all know that I love a good rom com, especially one with a Jewish author and with Jewish main characters. I read Meredith Schorr’s first book, As Seen on TV, and loved it. I felt so seen by her writing, and the same was true of her second book.

I saw a lot of myself in Molly. Like Molly, I am a people pleaser. She is also someone who likes to organize and plan like I am. Of course, she is also Jewish like me. It made me smile to read about the Blum and Stark families celebrating Hanukkah and that Molly’s grandma peppers Yiddish words into her speech. While reading, I felt like I really understood Molly, which made her story come alive for me.

Molly and Jude’s relationship is so engaging. They’ve known each other for so long that they can revert to their immature childhood selves around each other. As they spend more time together as adults, their relationship shifts. They learn about each other’s career goals and give each other advice and encouragement.

I love how central the familial relationships are in Schorr’s books. The whole premise of the book is centered around Jude and Molly’s families and the relationships between their respective families. The reader not only gets to understand the Stark and Blum family dynamics separately, but Schorr also focuses on how the members of the families interact.

Childhood trauma often bubbles up to the surface in romance novels, and it is especially prevalent in Someone Like You as a story centering around people who have known each other since childhood. Molly and Jude are forced to work through several issues from their childhood like Molly’s feelings around her parents’ separation when she was eight and Jude’s injury that ended his prospective baseball career. It was therapeutic to read them address these moments from their childhoods.

Someone Like You is a delightful and cozy rom com. There is something so homey about Schorr’s stories and her writing. I look forward to seeing what she writes next.