A review by patelyne
The Rom-Com Agenda by Jayne Denker

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

Eli is head over heels for Victoria. Why else would he propose four months into their relationship, right before she’s leaving for a nearly year long sabbatical to Italy? Unfortunately for him, she is not in the same place. 

The split propels him into full depression/hermit mode, and his sister and friends are desperate to get him back to the land of the living. Since he is obsessed with getting her back, they’ve decided to help him turn into a guy she would want to settle down with. So starts Project Make Eli Over. 

Leah feels trapped and alone. She came back to care for her dying foster mother. After she passes Leah wants nothing more than to save enough money to get out and move on. Why else would she be working at nearly every place in town with a few hours work she can do? 

Leah isn’t trying to change Eli. Really. She thinks he’s fine the way he is! But his friends are. And them bringing her in is like having friends herself. Now that she’s started to feel like she belongs … is leaving really what she wants? 

Along the way she realizes she really doesn’t want to make him ‘good enough’ for Victoria, maybe she wants to keep him for herself. And he’s realizing that he’s not so sure he wants to go after Victoria anymore himself. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but fair warning - the amount of times I wanted to tell Eli ‘Dude. She is not that into you’ about Victoria is… a lot. And Patrick - her foster mother’s son - without spoilers I’m just going to say that I had some Thoughts and Words that I would very much have liked to share with him if he were, you know, real.  When all is said and done though, the way things wrapped up was as close to perfect as I think you could get. Very satisfying. 
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