Note: Thanks to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam’s Sons for the advanced copy of this one. Here are my honest thoughts.

Publication Date: Tuesday, August 2, 2022

Blurb

In this funny and sharp romantic comedy, a woman with a knack for turning her boyfriends’ lives around starts a professional service to help wrangle men, only to be unexpectedly matched with an old flame.

Ever since she can remember, Aly has been fixing everything around her: her parents’ marriage, her colleagues’ work problems, and her friends’ love lives are just a few examples. After a chance meeting with an ex who has gone from living in his parents’ basement to being a married project manager in three years, she realizes she’s been fixing her boyfriends, too….

So, Aly decides to put her talents to good use and, alongside two work friends, sets up the Fixer Upper, an exclusive, underground service for women who are tired of unpaid emotional labor. Using little tricks and tips, Aly and her friends get the men to do the work themselves—to get out of the job they hate, sign up for that growth seminar, do more parenting. Before long, a high-profile Instagram star hires them to fix up her app developer boyfriend. There’s just one catch—he’s also Aly’s childhood best friend and first love. As Aly tackles her biggest “fixer upper” yet, she’ll have to come to terms with their complicated history and figure out how much to change someone she’d always thought was perfect as he is….

Review

This book is 80% chick lit, 20% romance (definitely not what I consider a “romantic comedy” by any stretch of the label), and you’ll be waiting until about 70% of the way into the book for the romantic storylines to take flight.

Aly and her two work friends, Eric and Tola, start a side hustle once they realize that Aly has been “fixing” all her previous boyfriends and helping them transform into the men they were meant to be…. once she broke up with them. Simultaneously, we watch Aly manage her distraught mother who is in an on-again-off-again relationship with her ex-husband, Aly’s father (who currently has a whole other family and life outside of Aly and her mom, so TRIGGER WARNING, cheating is a heavy topic in this novel). AND THEN on top of those storylines, Aly and team Fixer Upper are hired to fix Aly’s ex-best friend, who she used to love in her teen years, by his current and very famous reality star/influencer girlfriend. Oh yeah, and there’s drama at Aly’s place of employment, too. There’s just a lot going on and because of this, the story takes a lot of setup, so when it finally gets rolling about 40% of the way in, you’ve already been reading for… awhile.

While I have some complaints (mostly mentioned above), I did like these characters and the premise for this story. The majority of this book is what I could call Chick Lit, but it focuses heavily on the importance of relationships. First and foremost, Aly is closest with her Mama. There’s love between the two of them that turns into tough love, but their transformation and loyalty to one another makes any reader envious. Then, there’s the relationships with her friends, who know Aly deeply but it takes awhile for her to realize it. Eric and Tola bring such great energy to the book and make it an inclusive read. We also get to see Aly in a variety of working environments, where she has different relationships with different folks, but ends up helping everyone. As someone who has worked in an in-between position (not entry level, not management), at times I found it hard to believe that Aly was able to support ALL OF THE PEOPLE while also doing her job so well she thought she was up for a promotion. This just seems a little bit far-fetched, without even adding in her hours spent as the Fixer Upper and her dedicated time with her VIP client.

The most important relationship in this book is between Aly and herself. Eric, Tola, and especially Dylan help her to see herself as she is, instead of her ideas of how she should be or her insecurities of what others think of her. If you took out some of the noise from the rest of the story, Aly’s transformation, upon reflection, is beautiful and deep.

Some of the dialogue moved along too quickly (Aly and Dylan are arguing and within three paragraphs they’re hugging?) and some of the storylines were unnecessary, but overall I enjoyed this read and would recommend it to people who like Chick Lit, semi-second chance, British humor, with a touch of romantic comedy? 3.5 stars from me.

Rating: 3.5 Stars