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A review by andreasromancebooks
Finding Gene Kelly by Torie Jean
3.0
- Endometriosis/Chronic pain as a central theme.
- Toxic family dynamics (TW: infertility talk/comments, encouraging EDs, I’m-only-proud-of-you-if-you-do-what-I-say-when-I-say-so, narcissistic mother figure).
- Enemies-to-lovers with a past.
- Curvy FMC / Athletic af MMC
- Fake dating.
Evie is an American living in Paris, the city of her dreams, trying (and kind of failing) at being the pastry chef she’s always wanted to be. She has an awesome wedding planner roommate and life is going… well, it’s going. Evie also happens to have a disease called endometriosis, an uncurable condition that leaves her with chronic pain and an array of symptoms that make day to day life… interesting, to say the least. Interesting, different and, mostly painful. Now what’s a girl like Evie to do when, on her way to meeting a couple of friends for an afternoon delight (read doughnut), she bumps into her high-school-crush-turned-arch-nemesis and into a lamppost at the same time? Yeah, idk either.
This book was such an interesting read: fun at times, painfully true at others, ‘Finding Gene Kelly’ was both eye opening and mind settling. As a woman, I relate to many things that have made Evie’s health journey harder than it should’ve been. As a person with painful periods who have left them bed-ridden in the past, I can relate to some things experienced here as well, mostly in the social aspects of it. But, God, does endo suck. Not that I didn’t know before but reading about it in such detail was hard for multiple reasons, mainly because of the hopeless finality of it. There is no solution, just pain management, and no one is really scrambling to try to find a cure either. It’s an unacceptable truth, but it’s all there is. And for all the reasons that it was painful, it was also mind settling in the sense that reading about experiences like these validates and cements the voices of all others who feel like they’re drowning in the un-heard, un-seeing patients that are still looking for a diagnosis to their pain.
Now, there were many things in this book that did not work for me. The story is cute and I love the romance, but Evie is very a millennial, I’m-clumsy-and-quirky character to the point of feeling like she’s cursed, but it’s described as her being “accident-prone”. Seriously, it’s like every other scene, but she’s also kind of judgmental? Make that make sense. Liam is a dream, and I mean that literally. In a story so grounded into reality, it was hard to picture a man as perfectly thoughtful, sweet and caring as Liam, one that had held a candle for her for so long. His character felt flat: too fake, too perfect, especially when put against a character as well-rounded and complex as Evie. The miscommunication was also extremely annoying, an ongoing issue through most of the book.
That being said, this book is amazing in all the things it should and feels like a great entry into the world of diverse romances, which I can never get enough of and of which we definitely need more.
3/5 ⭐
*Thank you so much Net Galley for the eARC*
- Toxic family dynamics (TW: infertility talk/comments, encouraging EDs, I’m-only-proud-of-you-if-you-do-what-I-say-when-I-say-so, narcissistic mother figure).
- Enemies-to-lovers with a past.
- Curvy FMC / Athletic af MMC
- Fake dating.
Evie is an American living in Paris, the city of her dreams, trying (and kind of failing) at being the pastry chef she’s always wanted to be. She has an awesome wedding planner roommate and life is going… well, it’s going. Evie also happens to have a disease called endometriosis, an uncurable condition that leaves her with chronic pain and an array of symptoms that make day to day life… interesting, to say the least. Interesting, different and, mostly painful. Now what’s a girl like Evie to do when, on her way to meeting a couple of friends for an afternoon delight (read doughnut), she bumps into her high-school-crush-turned-arch-nemesis and into a lamppost at the same time? Yeah, idk either.
This book was such an interesting read: fun at times, painfully true at others, ‘Finding Gene Kelly’ was both eye opening and mind settling. As a woman, I relate to many things that have made Evie’s health journey harder than it should’ve been. As a person with painful periods who have left them bed-ridden in the past, I can relate to some things experienced here as well, mostly in the social aspects of it. But, God, does endo suck. Not that I didn’t know before but reading about it in such detail was hard for multiple reasons, mainly because of the hopeless finality of it. There is no solution, just pain management, and no one is really scrambling to try to find a cure either. It’s an unacceptable truth, but it’s all there is. And for all the reasons that it was painful, it was also mind settling in the sense that reading about experiences like these validates and cements the voices of all others who feel like they’re drowning in the un-heard, un-seeing patients that are still looking for a diagnosis to their pain.
Now, there were many things in this book that did not work for me. The story is cute and I love the romance, but Evie is very a millennial, I’m-clumsy-and-quirky character to the point of feeling like she’s cursed, but it’s described as her being “accident-prone”. Seriously, it’s like every other scene, but she’s also kind of judgmental? Make that make sense. Liam is a dream, and I mean that literally. In a story so grounded into reality, it was hard to picture a man as perfectly thoughtful, sweet and caring as Liam, one that had held a candle for her for so long. His character felt flat: too fake, too perfect, especially when put against a character as well-rounded and complex as Evie. The miscommunication was also extremely annoying, an ongoing issue through most of the book.
That being said, this book is amazing in all the things it should and feels like a great entry into the world of diverse romances, which I can never get enough of and of which we definitely need more.
3/5 ⭐
*Thank you so much Net Galley for the eARC*