To find love as a New Year’s Resolution

Synopsis

A Hilarious and Heartening Take on the Pitfalls of Modern Dating

As the clock strikes midnight over a disastrous New Year’s Eve and happy couples celebrate all around her, Kate makes a resolution, hastily scrawled on the back of a napkin, that next New Year’s Eve she will have found someone of her own to kiss.

But when you’re a forty-something cat-mom who’d rather binge Netflix than brave the singles scene, finding someone to kiss turns out to be harder than it sounds. Kate is totally unprepared for navigating hook-up apps, speed-dating, and sliding into somebody’s DMs.

With the end of the year rapidly approaching, Kate seems further than ever from reaching her goal. As relationships crumble around her and dark long-kept secrets spill out, could Kate’s fixation on her quest cause her to let true love slip through her fingers forever? 

Someone to Kiss is a wry and witty romantic comedy, tackling serious issues with real heart. The perfect new read for fans of Beth O’Leary, Jennier Weiner and JoJo Moyes.

My review

Surrounded by happy couples on New Year’s Eve, Kate makes a slightly drunk resolution to find someone to kiss for next New Year’s Eve. And to make it more binding, she has written it down on a napkin.
But finding that someone is easier said than done, especially as Kate is the kind of person who prefers a Netflix evening over an evening out. And for sure she isn’t ready for the dating scene, filled with dating apps, not so nice DM’s and speed dating.
With the expertise of her best friend Julie, Kate is on a mission. But being so focused, could it be that Kate is not seeing that her true love is closer than she thinks? And with that same focus, she is also not seeing what is happening around her, making her being shocked when dark secrets are being revealed… 

I like it when a character decides to make a New Year’s resolution that will, in the end, make her find love.
And having a character that in many cases is similar to me, makes it easier to keep turning the pages. 

I could absolutely understand Kate in so many aspects. Being on her own, wanting to find that special one, is something many people could relate to. But the fact that Kate prefers a nice evening in instead of just going out, is something I agree on completely. Also the fact that she isn’t the kind of woman that has a great confidence and is more ‘prey’ than ‘predator’, resembles in my own character. 

Of course, seeing her taking those scary steps into the dating scene, was funny to read about! I felt her being uncomfortable, wanting to escape but also being determined to stay at the same time. And seeing how some events turn into disasters, made me laugh and also be glad it was Kate and not me!  

And as Kate’s best friend Julie is just everything Kate is not, it was easy to understand Kate’s lower self – esteem, and copying (and absolutely failing) Julie’s behaviour.
And while it was funny to read about it, I found it also a bit sad at the same time. Because a grown woman should always be able to be who she really is, and not trying to be someone else…
Also knowing how little she can take her alcohol, yet keeps on drinking, trying to be fun, made me think Kate should know better…
But that is all part of the process of growing and finding Love… 

While the focus is definitely on Kate, getting to know Julie and her brother Ben was a nice diversion. Because it only shows that everyone, no matter how confident and strong they may seem, has demons to face. And some demons may be bigger than we think… 

I enjoyed reading this book, even if I felt that towards the end, things were a bit rushed. I knew how I wanted the story to end, and when the author took an apparent different road, I wasn’t ecstatic, but I could understand her motivations. So when another twist and turn was made, it felt like my knowledge of some characters were just deleted and were actually not who we thought they were. 

But that kind of rushed ending didn’t take away the joy and fun I had while reading Kate’s story. I laughed a lot, but I also felt a connection with Kate, and hoped that she could find her real prince between all the frogs in the world of dating.