The days until the release of The 30-Day Engagement are creeping forward, and I’m honestly trying not to think about it–but how could I not think about it? I am planning some posts on the characters and such, not with the intent of being the author who tells you how to read, but for fun. For example, I think people will call this book an opposites-attract romance, whereas I think of it as “samesies-but-different” romance.
I’m not really a believer in true opposites attracting. When I think about the person who’d be my opposite, I think: ew. And I suppose that for a truly happy relationship, you have to have some common ground, some shared values, and an agreement on what you want out of a relationship in the first place.
This plays out in The 30-Day Engagement in a lot of ways. Emory, who’s probably a young millennial, and Bliss, probably an older Gen Z, aren’t that far apart in age, yet if I imagine the book taking place in the near future, it’s fair to say that their worlds were different. Emory wouldn’t have had many sapphic role models, and giving herself the label of lesbian would have felt…big. Bliss’s world has been more open and welcoming, to the point where she can say “I like everybody” and not really worry about a label at all as she dates people who aren’t men. On the flip side, Emory’s more of a solo gay who’s internalized a lot about the corporate environment she works in–one that doesn’t value any sort of diversity–and Bliss has a cadre of queers…while rejecting everything Emory stands for. Or so she thinks….
I’ll save that for another day. Meanwhile, here’s a bit from a review I got from Publishers Weekly!
