A review by tbush238
Match Me If You Can by Swati Hegde

1.0

Did not finish at 33%. This one was so rough. I encouraged myself to get a third of the way through, and if I still wasn’t feeling it until then, I’d quit. Jia is one of the most deeply unlikable characters I’ve read in a while. She’s incredibly selfish and just outright cruel to her supposed childhood best friend, Jaiman. I understand that this is a retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma, but Emma had more depth that made her decision making more understandable, at least to me. At no point did I understand why Jia was so casually cruel to Jaiman to the point where she’s saying he’s stealing her life and family and has no life outside of them. It was just weird? I should’ve stopped reading when we got to the scene at her sister’s where Jia and Jaiman kiss, but Jia thinks it’s all a bet based on an earlier conversation she heard between Jia and Jaiman. The conversation mentioned no bet regarding Jia and Jaiman very clearly shut down any talk of “landing” Jia. It was so completely frustrating reading this woman’s absurd thoughts. Jaiman was fine, but I don’t understand why he was cooking for his found family instead of working at his failing pub? Unfortunately, this book was just not for me at all.