The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center
The Rom-Commers (St. Martin’s Press) by Katherine Center is a delightful, hilarious love story that fans of Emily Henry will be eager to dive into this summer.
Emma Wheeler would love to be a screenwriter, but even though she has the talent, she knows she must stay home to take care of her father. That is, until famous screenwriter Charlie Yates, who just so happens to be her idol, needs help re-writing a rom-com script. Rom-coms are Emma’s specialty, and after years of researching the genre, this is an opportunity she can’t pass up.
After moving to LA for six weeks, Emma finds out that Charlie is none to happy to be working with a rookie. They say you should never meet your idols and Emma is experiencing that firsthand. She is determined to show her worth and create the perfect movie, no matter how hard Charlie fights it — and the idea of love itself. Emma is willing to risk it all, including her heart, to change Charlie’s mind and make the perfect movie.
Loveable Narrator
An aspect of this book that really stood out is the way Katherine Center completely breaks the fourth wall. Many times throughout the novel, Emma directly addresses the reader, which creates a feeling of safety and familiarity. Emma’s explanation of the genre and all its rules also lends to that feeling. You know what to expect because this is the recipe. What makes The Rom-Commers so special is that even though you know where it’s going to end up, Center makes this story fresh and bingeable. The banter and the dialogue are whip-smart and laugh-out-loud funny.
Character Development
While I wished Charlie had been kinder much quicker than he was at the start of the story, watching his personal development was interesting and I was rooting for his change. You can see his healing happening on the page. As you are reading, you can feel how Charlie’s moods affect Emma and will recognize the strength of the connection between the two characters.
Emma showed incredible strength and resilience. The backstory about how her mother died added an emotional depth that some rom-coms lack. Throughout, you can see how Emma was affected by the loss and how her coping skills were formed. Center really dug to get to the bottom of how Emma would react in each situation.
Favorite Rom-Com Tropes
There are two tropes at play in The Rom-Commers — forced proximity and grumpy/sunshine. If you love these tropes, this is definitely worth a read. Also, if you are a long-time reader of Center, you will see a cameo by a familiar character, Jack Stapleton from The Bodyguard. It is very easy to get lost in a Center book and feel like you are involved in these characters’ lives. All in all, The Rom-Commers is a book that will ultimately leave you feeling complete and better for having read it. Charlie and Emma feel like family and I can see this becoming a book that I will re-read often.
About Katherine Center:
BookPage calls Katherine Center “the reigning queen of comfort reads.” She’s the New York Times bestselling author of over half a dozen books, including How to Walk Away, Things You Save in a Fire, and What You Wish For. Katherine writes laugh-and-cry books about how life knocks us down—and how we get back up. She’s been compared to both Jane Austen and Nora Ephron, and the Dallas Morning News calls her stories, “satisfying in the most soul-nourishing way.” Her books have made countless Best-Of lists, including RealSimple’s Best Books of 2020, Amazon’s Top 100 Books of 2019, Goodreads’ Best Books of the Year, and many more. Bestselling author Emily Henry calls her summer 2022 book, The Bodyguard, “a shot of pure joy.” The movie adaptation of Katherine’s novel The Lost Husband (starring Josh Duhamel) hit #1 on Netflix, and her novel Happiness for Beginners is now a Netflix original starring Ellie Kemper. Katherine lives in her hometown of Houston, Texas, with her husband, two kids, and their fluffy-but-fierce dog.
Photo Credit: Skylar Reeves Photography
