Calendar Girls February 2020

Currently hosted by  Flavia the Bibliophile and Dani at mousaibooks Calendar Girls is a monthly blog event created by Melanie at MNBernard Books and Flavia the Bibliophile.  It is designed to ignite bookish discussions among readers and was inspired by the 1961 Neil Sedaka song Calendar Girl.

This month we’re leaning into the romantic side of February by highlighting romantic comedies. 

I  have a strong desire to pick a book for the main pick that I haven’t talked about in-depth in other Calendar Girls posts, but I really don’t think this would be a proper post on my blog if I didn’t acknowledge two fo the greatest books I’ve ever read which both happen to be romantic comedies.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee and Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston.

Listen, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue is probably my second favorite book. It’s nearly perfect. It’s cute, it’s lovely. Monty grows so much through this story. He starts out so unlikeable and in the end, I love him with my whole heart. Percy is a great stabling balance to Monty. I could go on and have gone on about this book years, just pick up this book if you haven’t.

Red, White, and Royal Blue was just good. The major subplot is the 2020 presidential election, which honestly highlighted how much PTSD I have from the 2016 presidential election. But the main plot, Alex discovering himself, a handsome Prince who is part of a monarchy with traditions.  This was the best book of 2019 as voted on by the people who run this blog, and other people it was on a bunch of lists. It’s good, it funny, there are live turkeys in the White House. Alex and Henry make out against a painting of Alexander Hamilton.

However, my pick for Best Romantic Comedy is:

 

When Dimple met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

I loved this book so much. It had that slow burn element, but also had the instant connection of the characters.

This was one for the first books I read after being highly recommended by basically every single blog I followed at the time. I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about it, because my reading experience before I started blogging was pretty white. I hadn’t expanded outside of my “comfort” zone and experienced different cultures through books, thankfully that has now changed.

What I loved about this book was Dimple’s strong headedness. She knew what she wanted and it wasn’t the plan her mother had for her. She was going to do these things and do them her way, but as the story processed there was growth in both characters to try to find something in the middle. I love that kind of character growth subplot in romance stories.

I also really like that Rishi wanted the traditional life. He was ready to have everything planned out for him, meeting Dimple changed him quite a bit too. It’s nice to see two characters grow together like they did in this book.

I remember really enjoying the narrative and how the book was set up with multiple shifts in POV throughout a chapter but having them clearly labeled and easy to follow. I used this book, actually, as an example of how to do clean POV switches in an editor meeting for one of my jobs

I know that there are a couple other books set in the same universe as this one, and I own then, because I’m a book hoarder, but I haven’t read them yet. I going to try to get to them this year because thinking about this book reminded me of how cute and sweet these characters were and how much I loved Sandhya Menon’s writing style.

There are so many cute romantic comedy novels out there, I know there have already some great books picked by my fellow Calendar Girl posters and if our chat is anything to go by there are going to be a lot of runner ups on some blogs. I highly recommend checking out those posts if rom-coms are your jam.

Want to join the discussion? Create your own Calendar Girl’s post (just remember to pin back to Dani and Flavia) or drop a comment! I ‘d love to hear from you!

Until next time Internet,

Deanna