“I know it’s not a modern sentiment, that I should be happy with my career, my single life, my autonomy, but darn it, can’t I be a successful, modern woman and still want someone to love? A family to love?”
This quote sums up what I thought this romance would be about: the balance between being a modern woman and being someone who wants love. What I got turned out to be so much more.
Josh and Gemma Make a Baby is a tender and funny romance that takes on infertility, modern feminism, and toxic positivity. Of all of these, I was most pleasantly surprised with how Ready handled toxic positivity.
Gemma reminded me of a childhood friend I had, one who always tried to look on the bright side of things. This in itself was refreshing–I’ve never read a heroine exactly like this. But then as the story goes on, Gemma realizes the over-generalized optimism of her disgusting boss’s ignores what it’s actually like to be human sometimes. I just loved the use of quotes and their breakdown by the end.
Josh was a sweetheart. I haven’t read many “brother’s best friend” tropes, but this one did not disappoint. His care-free attitude with the occasional sincere breakthrough contrasted the toxic positivity of Ian so nicely. The only thing I wish for this book is a few more sweet moments with him and Gemma and maybe one more of the two with his dad to really solidify our attachment to the characters.
That being said, I adored the discussion of IVF and infertility along with the friends Gemma makes at her support group. I don’t hear many discussions of how hard infertility is for those with uteruses, so it was very refreshing to have this representation here.
At times, the writing felt cheesy, but I think it worked for this book. This romance falls into many tropes that romance readers are familiar with and by all means is not trying to do anything new with the genre, but something new is not what I need from a romance. This novel is a solid romance. It is definitely better than a lot of the more popular romances from the past year.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: ★★★★
Louise Reads 