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A review by tessisreading2
Playing House by Ruby Lang
3.0
Easy, almost conflict-free romance. I was hoping I'd love this but it was mostly just okay. I got the sense that the characters lived in the author's head for so long that she's totally familiar with them, but they didn't quickly unspool on the page, and when we begin with Lady Who's Been Divorced and Guy Who Doesn't Have A Job (their defining characteristics at the beginning) it's hard to keep reading. The only real conflict seemed to be that Oliver had applied for a job with Fay's company; in the beginning he can't tell whether she's reviewed his resume or wants to date him, but even when it becomes apparent that she's dating him - or at least that their interactions are not job-related - he doesn't flag the fact that he has a resume with her company for her, which is frankly just kind of weird.
There's a real sense of New York as a place here, which I liked. I am not sure that I quite bought Oliver and Fay as urban planners - like, I get what urban planning is as a career, but I'm not sure what Oliver and Fay were doing in their day-to-day, although admittedly the only urban planner I've known in real life was an underemployed twenty-something who worked for a suburban town and was bitter about the fact that a lot of his job at the moment involved arguing with people over traffic light placement (?) - and there was a lot of fun real estate and house tour porn, which on the one hand was nice and on the other hand was kind of iffy - like, Oliver and Fay are scheduling house showings (which seems really rude to the real estate agent who has to come show them the house) and then locking themselves in upstairs rooms to get a little frisky (which, ew). I get it, pre-Covid I liked to go to open houses I could never afford also, but this just seemed like kind of a jerk move.
In general, there wasn't much of a sense of conflict or immediacy. Oliver and Fay are acquaintances who have always found each other vaguely attractive; she is now divorced; they run into each other again and start hanging out more. It was pleasant but all felt faintly inevitable.
There's a real sense of New York as a place here, which I liked. I am not sure that I quite bought Oliver and Fay as urban planners - like, I get what urban planning is as a career, but I'm not sure what Oliver and Fay were doing in their day-to-day, although admittedly the only urban planner I've known in real life was an underemployed twenty-something who worked for a suburban town and was bitter about the fact that a lot of his job at the moment involved arguing with people over traffic light placement (?) - and there was a lot of fun real estate and house tour porn, which on the one hand was nice and on the other hand was kind of iffy - like, Oliver and Fay are scheduling house showings (which seems really rude to the real estate agent who has to come show them the house) and then locking themselves in upstairs rooms to get a little frisky (which, ew). I get it, pre-Covid I liked to go to open houses I could never afford also, but this just seemed like kind of a jerk move.
In general, there wasn't much of a sense of conflict or immediacy. Oliver and Fay are acquaintances who have always found each other vaguely attractive; she is now divorced; they run into each other again and start hanging out more. It was pleasant but all felt faintly inevitable.