Cover of The Rom-Commers, with a brightly colored illustration of a white woman with curly red hair in a pink dress and a white man with short brown hair in a hoddie and pants

About the Book

Title: The Rom-Commers
Published: 2024
Swoonworthy Scale: 3

Sub-Genres: Opposites Attract, Meta Rom-Com
What’s Your Type?: Relatable Fangirl, Zero Sex, Touching Family Moments

Welcome to another installment of our Grown-Up Guide to Romance! I’m sorry to say that this week’s post isn’t all heart eyes, because yours truly is apparently terrible at doing her research, but I’ll be damned if I let my time go to waste. So cue up some Paula Abdul, and join me for a few eye rolls, some genuinely fun banter, and absolutely ZERO S-E-X (booo).

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center

Fancy Dress to Fabio: Airport Bookstore

This cover is totally fine. With bright colors (very in vogue right now) and a cute illustration, this definitely broadcasts “chick fic,” and the two main characters are illustrated accurately—though, I’m sorry, are those pinstriped pants he’s wearing? And not jeans? Mmmkay, illustrator! 

The Deal: 

Emma Wheeler lives and breathes rom-coms. Not only that, she writes them! Well, not anything that’s been produced, but it’s tough to break out in Hollywood while you’re busy taking care of your dad in Houston. He suffered a traumatic brain injury ten years ago in a rockfall that killed Emma’s mother, and since he’s partially paralyzed on one side and tends to fall a lot (due to something called Ménière’s disease), he needs someone around at all times. Not that Emma minds, since he’s her favorite person, but now that her younger sister, Sylvie, is out of college and can handle the caretaking, it seems like maybe it’s finally time for Emma to resume her own life. Cue Logan, her old high school boyfriend, who is now a talent manager in LA with a ton of famous clients including Charlie Yates, a legendary screenwriter famous for tough, hard-hitting movies. See, Charlie is in a bit of a pickle: in order to get his next picture greenlit, he was to write a romantic comedy, and it turns out, he is terrible at it. 

Emma, who worships Charlie’s work, agrees to fly out to LA, only to discover that Charlie had no idea Logan was bringing her in to help him. Not exactly a meet cute! After some awkward conversations, a few angry outbursts, and a debate over whether love is real, Emma and Charlie decide to collaborate, because Emma needs the cash, and Charlie wants his other movie to be made. She moves into his mansion (of course!), and they commence writing, which means an education in rom-coms for Charlie and an education in the industry for Emma. As the script comes together, so do its authors, though both seem unsure of leaving the friend zone in spite of some pretty obvious flirtation. Will they get past their hang-ups and find their happily ever after? Just look at that cover, of course they will!

The Leading Woman: Amanda (Cameron Diaz) in The Holiday

In some ways, I completely related to Emma. I have no doubt she could best me in rom-com trivia, and I salute her fandom, even if it was a little manic at times. She also loves her dad so much (“My dad was always the dad everybody wanted. If there were a dad store, he’d be a bestseller. They’d have rows and rows of him for sale, right up front.”), and as someone whose dad would also be a bestseller, I adored the sweet moments between them while admiring how much she devotes to his care. With that said, I fortunately cannot relate to her grief and guilt over his injury and her mom’s death (the accident happened on Emma’s birthday trip, i.e. she picked the location); this anguish truly haunts her and cripples her desire to take risks and be vulnerable outside of her family. Obviously, it also colors a lot of her interactions with Charlie, and while I felt for her, my empathy could only go so far; once she starts hitting Trope Territory, my eye rolls commenced. She accidentally overhears him mention her as a “failed writer” in a conversation and then bottles it up (i.e. flies off the handle later) instead of just confronting him about it! She suggests that they practice kiss to write the kissing scene! She confesses her feelings to him and then, when he doesn’t reciprocate (for reasons that are VERY OBVIOUS), she gets drunk and then refuses to speak to him. And yes, I get the joke here: she’s an expert in rom-coms with no real-life romance experience so she acts like she’s in a rom-com, but y’all, it just makes her seem childish? Take, for example, this exchange with her sister:

“Why can’t you just have a conversation? Tell him you like him and see if he likes you?”

“Please,” I said. “If human relationships worked like that, I’d be out of a job.” 

But see, Emma, they do work like that?! Or they can, if you’re a mature adult! But okay sure, I guess that doesn’t make for a good rom-com.

Also, minor note, but she has zero cool around famous people and it made me criiiiiinge so hard. Like, you do not just go up to a producer and hand them your screenplay! Everyone knows this! Ugh.

I will end this section with Emma’s title for her autobiography: Someday You’ll Thank Me. I would… not buy that.

The Leading Man: Kevin (James Marsden) in 27 Dresses

Charlie Yates is pretty much the exact opposite, of course! With a drawer full of Oscars and the respect of every single person in Hollywood, he’s nonchalant to a fault; he wears flip-flops to red carpets and once took a phone call while accepting an award. He’s a bit of a grump, a mood exacerbated by the fact that he’s lived alone in a mansion since his ex-wife moved out, and he’s extremely serious about his craft, but somehow without being a prick? (Props to Katherine Center for this masterful balance.) While he says that love is something that Hallmark created, which is so lame and let’s be honest, passé, he most definitely has a beating, caring heart; for example, he pet-sits for a guinea pig named Cuthbert, resulting in this exchange with Emma:

I looked at Cuthbert, and Cuthbert looked at me. 

“Can I pick him up?” I asked.

Charlie shook his head. “They don’t like the feeling of being lifted up,” he said. “It makes them feel like they’ve been snatched by an eagle.”

“How do you know how guinea pigs feel? About anything?”

That’s when Charlie Yates, divorced custody-sharing guinea pig sitter, said, “I know what I know.” 

One thing I really dug about Charlie is that he challenges Emma to be a better writer, and he takes the time to mentor her in the ways of the industry. He sees her talent and wants to support her, which is super sexy, right?! And, because he can’t escape Tropeville either, he does have a secret pain, which he gruffly hides from Emma and which leads to a lot of the fucking shenanigans that made me CRAZY, so I guess I can’t blame Emma for all of it. 

But the title of his autobiography? Alone Too Long. YEP, adding to my library hold list! 

Risque Ranking: 3

Guys… oops, I did it again. Last year, I accidentally picked a closed-door romance, and this year, I unknowingly picked a romance where there’s not even the need for a goddamn door! And these people LIVE TOGETHER. Sure, the rapid-fire banter adds some chemistry, and it’s clear* that our two leads like each other, but mama need more! There are a grand total of TWO kisses in this thing. TWO. And they ain’t even PG-13, y’all, as you’ll see below. 

*Clear at least to me and Charlie. Emma? Yeah IDK.

Ms. Perky’s Prize for Purplest Prose:

Then he shifted his gaze from my eyes to my mouth, and he wasn’t just looking, he was seeing. It was like he was taking in everything about my mouth—from color, to texture, to shape. It was physical, like it had a force, and I swear I could feel it, like he was brushing the skin of my lips with nothing but the intensity of his gaze. 

And then he leaned in closer, staying laser-focused on this one place right in front of him. 

The anticipation was excruciating.

I watched his mouth as he leaned closer. 

And then, just as we touched, he brought his hand into my hair to hold me close. 

And I stretched my arms up around his neck.

And the kiss just took over. 

His mouth felt smooth and firm and soft all at once, and the warmth and tenderness of it all swirled together with my dawning understanding that this was happening—Charlie Yates was kissing me. And a dreamy euphoria hijacked all of my senses, and I felt like long grass billowed by the wind.

Katherine Center, you know rom-coms nowadays do have sex, right?

Was it Good For You? 10 Things I Hate About You

To be clear, I’m using the title of 10 Things literally, in that I did not like this book. But hate is too strong of a word, purely “whelmed” is much, much more accurate.

The Rom-Commers seemed like it would check all my boxes: a meta take on rom-coms, a stand-offish but brilliant male lead, a romance fangirl hungry for a screenwriting career. But as you can see, this book didn’t quite work for me. Between the lack of spicy times, the hasty jumping to conclusions by Emma, and frankly, some of the Hallmark platitudes sprinkled throughout (by the end, I felt like I had enough to decorate an entire AirBnB), this book and I were definitely not meant for a happily ever after.

FTC Full Disclosure: I got my copy of this book from the library and received neither cocktails nor money in exchange for this review. The Rom-Commers is available now.

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Sarah lives in Austin, and believes there is no such thing as a guilty pleasure, which is part of why she started FYA in 2009. Growing up, she thought she was a Mary Anne, but she's finally starting to accept the fact that she's actually a Kristy.