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A review by christinemomo
Match Me If You Can by Swati Hegde
3.0
I had a great time, but the flaws stood out more as I had time to think about it. I wish I had gone harder with the premise she doesn’t do as much matching as the original Emma and it lacks some of the fun chaos of it.
The changes made to adapt and modernize “Emma” into a 2024 Desi romance set in Mumbai really worked for me.
There’s no age gap, and Jaiman (our Knightley) and his family have been best friends with Jia (our Emma) and her family for their whole lives, so his role as practically family works well, and he’s there often since his parents moved away.
Jia is a romance magazine writer with a secret side hustle writing an anonymous relationship advice blog.
This is Emma-lite; she does 1 match making attempt (the first from the OG book) and trying to help that mentee/friend to the end of her romance journey is the main element of matchmaking, beyond Jai having a blog she keeps giving love advice on throughout. So very much in the spirit of Emma with advice and interfering with best intentions despite never having dated, but not the number of match making blunders.
Jai (our modern Desi Emma) isn’t really involved in other matches the way the OG Emma does, but similar characters and couplings happen and it was fun to recognize and put together who they were a nod to, as a big fan of Emma.
I really enjoyed Jia’s friends had a lot of fun. I think as an Emma fan I knew to expect a slow-burn (our MCs don’t get together quickly) which frankly I prefer to a random late book break up, but I do think it would’ve been nice to see more of them together even as friends. They have many interactions, but they are always pretty short.
It would’ve been nice to see a big chunk of a game night or a dinner or whatever else and see them really spend time together. I think the super short chapters with perspective switches mid chapter worked well for a light romance read, but it limited opportunities for this. But nothing would’ve stopped the author from doing 1-2 chapters all of the same scene or just have a chapter be longer to really let us see them talk for a long time interrupted.
Jiaman also could’ve used some more personality, he just pined politely and brooded over his financial woes in heroic silence mostly. But I still had a good time!
I still hope for a truly chaotic mess of some sort of queer Emma adaptation to be made someday that I’ll 5 star and reread obsessively, but this was a fun modern take I enjoyed.
The changes made to adapt and modernize “Emma” into a 2024 Desi romance set in Mumbai really worked for me.
There’s no age gap, and Jaiman (our Knightley) and his family have been best friends with Jia (our Emma) and her family for their whole lives, so his role as practically family works well, and he’s there often since his parents moved away.
Jia is a romance magazine writer with a secret side hustle writing an anonymous relationship advice blog.
This is Emma-lite; she does 1 match making attempt (the first from the OG book) and trying to help that mentee/friend to the end of her romance journey is the main element of matchmaking, beyond Jai having a blog she keeps giving love advice on throughout. So very much in the spirit of Emma with advice and interfering with best intentions despite never having dated, but not the number of match making blunders.
Jai (our modern Desi Emma) isn’t really involved in other matches the way the OG Emma does, but similar characters and couplings happen and it was fun to recognize and put together who they were a nod to, as a big fan of Emma.
I really enjoyed Jia’s friends had a lot of fun. I think as an Emma fan I knew to expect a slow-burn (our MCs don’t get together quickly) which frankly I prefer to a random late book break up, but I do think it would’ve been nice to see more of them together even as friends. They have many interactions, but they are always pretty short.
It would’ve been nice to see a big chunk of a game night or a dinner or whatever else and see them really spend time together. I think the super short chapters with perspective switches mid chapter worked well for a light romance read, but it limited opportunities for this. But nothing would’ve stopped the author from doing 1-2 chapters all of the same scene or just have a chapter be longer to really let us see them talk for a long time interrupted.
Jiaman also could’ve used some more personality, he just pined politely and brooded over his financial woes in heroic silence mostly. But I still had a good time!
I still hope for a truly chaotic mess of some sort of queer Emma adaptation to be made someday that I’ll 5 star and reread obsessively, but this was a fun modern take I enjoyed.