The Dating Dilemma
The Dating Dilemma is a fun, sexy contemporary romantic comedy about learning to ask for the things you need in life. Lexi is on a six month break from dating, because her boyfriends always take advantage of her giving personality. But when a hot fireman turns up to perform a safety inspection at the youth centre where she is the Assistant Director…well, even if one isn’t dating, one can enjoy looking.
Dylan, the hot fireman in question, has sworn off relationships after his fiancée cheated on him with his best friend. But his sisters are worried about him, and he hates to disappoint them almost as much as he hates the idea of them setting him up on surprise dates, so a fake relationship is in order. And who better to ask than the pretty youth centre director who mistook him for a strip-o-gram?
This is a classic ‘fake-relationship, we definitely aren’t going to fall in love, but also, we find each other really hot, so let’s have a fling to get it out of our systems!’ narrative. I know exactly how this is going to go, but I am nonetheless totally along for the ride, because it’s fun. Lexi and Dylan are both lovely people, the chemistry between them is VERY hot, and I was happy to spend time with them.
What really made this book work for me was the relationships surrounding the protagonists. Dylan has a close and loving relationship with his sisters, and his co-workers are like a second family to him. Lexi’s flatmate is her best friend, and she has an affectionate, nearly sibling-like relationship with him and his partner, as well as warm relationships with her colleagues and the children who use the youth centre. This made for a really cosy book – there were no bad guys in this story, just two kind, caring people, trying to sort their shit out with a little help from their friends and families.
I also really liked the theme of facing one’s fears that came up later in the book, and the way that those fears didn’t simply go away, but were easier to manage when the people you love are beside you.
I only had two small quibbles. One is that the humour in this book is often about embarrassment – this can be a dealbreaker for me, and this story took me close to the edge of that at times. Also, Lexi and Dylan spent a LOT of time worrying about what each other would think if they confessed their feelings, because heaven forbid they actually have a conversation! This is, I suspect, emotionally realistic for most of us, but it did get frustrating at times.
I had a really good time reading this book. It was sweet and low-stress and hot, with just a little bit of food for thought to take away with me – just right for a summer holiday read.
Lexi’s Reminders
* Work.
* Don’t think about your birthday tomorrow. Or debt, your crappy apartment, and nonexistent social life.
* Re-stock wine and ice cream because that’s coming.
* Die in a raging blaze of humiliation when the super-hot and very delicious fireman waiting in your office is not in fact the strip-o-gram birthday present you suspected.
* Reschedule the fire safety inspection you 100 percent failed because of said humiliation.
* Figure out how you, in fact, agreed to fake dating Mr. Not a Strip-O-Gram Fireman to help him with a bet.
* Oh yeah, and do not fall for this guy. Seriously, they call him One Night O’Neil. Red flags all over the place.
* Remember, this is fake dating, even though his very talented, very real lips are doing some sexy things you definitely like.
* Realize bending one tiny rule can’t be that bad, can it?
* Except bend too far, and something breaks. Something you can’t get back.
Contemporary Romance, Romance
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The humiliation thing is *such* a dealbreaker for me, so alas this otherwise delightful sounding book is out.
I would love to understand whether it’s a popular thing, or just common. I mostly considered it a kind of cultural misogyny, not just because women have to be punished, but also an attempt to make a successful woman relatable rather than threatening because obvs those are our options. To me it’s also a simulacrum of humor, which has to be tempting to writers since comedy is so much harder, right? I recently tried to read Playing the Palace, where both leads are men and it was genuinely funny but still also unbearably, relentlessly humiliating for ‘humor’ and I am now trying to wrap my head around the idea that maybe this is just legit fun for many readers. I mean, I laugh when people fall down, I have no high moral ground. I don’t want to make anyone defensive, I am just really curious how many people really enjoy a romcom despite vs because of the humiliation scenarios.
In my 36 years on this earth I never gave much thought to the sexiness of firefighting as a profession until this year. So I’ll probably read this.
I really appreciate these thorough, nothing held back reviews. I have decided that life is too short for me to take the time to read anything but B+, A-, and A reviews. Thank you.
But I must say, all the firefighters I’ve known, and there have been many, are always quite buff.
kkw, its definitely not just you, humiliation is not funny. It can make me feel schadenfraeude if it happens to an odious politician, but it is still not funny.
@kkw and @Jazzlet – I agree re humiliation, but I definitely feel like there’s a difference between humiliation and embarrassment. Like, I love me a good “stuck up character ends up in ridiculous costume” plotline. But hard no on heroine (who we are supposed to believe is a rational human being) (and somehow 80% of the time it’s the heroine) doing something ridiculous and ending up humiliated and har har isn’t that hilarious??? (Have rage quit a book when heroine was about to crawl out of a lecture hall to avoid a man… like I can see where this is going and NO THANK YOU).
For me, the line has to do with intentionality, I think – did the characters put themselves in an intentionally humiliating situation by being idiots? Was someone trying to humiliate them? If so, then that’s not funny to me. On the other hand, situational embarrassment (fake couple forced into relationship scenarios they aren’t prepared for), is fine. And there is definitely a line, and where it is crossed is different for different people, for sure.
In my city, it seems to be a job requirement that the firemen are super good looking. They used to do this “fill the boot” fundraiser where they would walk to cars at red lights, and you would put money in a fireman’s boot. I made sure I would be out and about on that day!
@Maureen, another Covid tragedy. No cute firemen at traffic lights. It never seems to be the middle aged dad bod firemen, and believe me, as someone whose desk over looks the ambulance bay, they vastly outnumber the hot bod ones.
I really don’t like humiliation humor either, to the point I’ve never watched Friends or Seinfeld, and a lot of romantic comedy movies just make me cringe. Thinking about it now, I believe a lot depends on how other people react. For example, if the main character trips in a crowded cafeteria and drops her tray, do people laugh and clap? Or does the hunky hero help her pick things up and try to put her at ease? If someone stumbles over a word, does the other person chuckle because “I always trip over that one too!” or is it written so the embarrassed character slinks off feeling like she can never show her face again? So I guess if the other characters are kind, I can take a little embarrassment humor.
I’m put off a little by the embarrassment humor too, though I’m also curious enough to read the first few pages before I give a full no to the whole book. Thank you, Catherine Heloise!