Release Date: October 30th 2018
Publisher: Berkley Books
Format: Paperback
Pages: 325
Read: January 29th 2020 – February 1st 2020
The author of The Wedding Date serves up a novel about what happens when a public proposal doesn’t turn into a happy ending, thanks to a woman who knows exactly how to make one on her own…
When someone asks you to spend your life with him, it shouldn’t come as a surprise — or happen in front of 45,000 people.
When freelance writer Nikole Paterson goes to a Dodgers game with her actor boyfriend, his man bun, and his bros, the last thing she expects is a scoreboard proposal. Saying no isn’t the hard part — they’ve only been dating for five months, and he can’t even spell her name correctly. The hard part is having to face a stadium full of disappointed fans…
At the game with his sister, Carlos Ibarra comes to Nik’s rescue and rushes her away from a camera crew. He’s even there for her when the video goes viral and Nik’s social media blows up — in a bad way. Nik knows that in the wilds of LA, a handsome doctor like Carlos can’t be looking for anything serious, so she embarks on an epic rebound with him, filled with food, fun, and fantastic sex. But when their glorified hookups start breaking the rules, one of them has to be smart enough to put on the brakes…
As much as I enjoyed Jasmine Guillory’s first novel The Wedding Date, The Proposal was a much stronger book. This book had very appealing and diverse characters and the secondary characters were just as colourful.
Nik is a loveable character. She is blunt, but good-hearted and is a good friend to Dana and Courtney. She is kind to acquaintances and always considerate of others around her. She is also a very strong character who is resilient and confident.
Carlos was a very appealing character in The Wedding Date and I was so excited to find out he was a main character in The Proposal. He is still grieving after the loss of his father and is trying to carry the weight of that loss by making up for it with the women in his family. Even with the grief and responsibility, he is kind and supportive to Nik and to the teens that come into his clinic.
Not only do our main characters come from diverse backgrounds – Nik is African-American and Carlos is Mexican-American – but the secondary characters do too. Jessie and Angela are Mexican-American, Dana is queer, and Natalia is bisexual. The secondary characters are so vibrant and fleshed out that they felt real and important to the story, not just there as support for Nik and Carlos.
The friendships between the women in this book were written strongly and meaningfully, which was a welcomed breathe of fresh air after some romance novels.
I can only think of two times when I was let down by the book. Overall, this book was less page-turning than The Wedding Date and that was due to the self-defence class subplot. It took up quite a bit of the book and seemed a little pointless, and it took away from the romantic relationship between Nik and Carlos. It was eventually used towards the end, which brings me back to my second point. When Nik’s self-defence skills are used on someone, I felt like the person was more annoying then threatening and didn’t feel like her punch was justified.
The Proposal was a sweet and colourful romantic comedy and is perfect for those looking for a light contemporary to read on a weekend.
4/5
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