The Idea of You is an age gap celebrity romance where the heroine is older than the hero. I didn’t mind the age-gap portion (in fact I appreciate a book where the heroine is the older one), but I had a lot of issues with how the heroine’s relationship with the hero would and did impact her daughter. Also I was pretty surprised by the ending which is very different from the movie the book is based on.
This book does not have a HEA or HFN.
Solene Marchand is a 39-year-old single mom and co-owner of an art gallery in Los Angeles. She takes her 12-year-old daughter, Isabelle, and her friends to a concert and meet and greet for August Moon, a popular British boy band, where she meets Hayes Campbell, the 20-year-old founder of the band. The two engage in some harmless flirting and Solene is surprised when she gets back to LA that Hayes has tracked her down and wants to meet for drinks.
A fair amount of this book is Solene dating Hayes and questioning if their relationship is a good idea since, as she repeatedly states, she’s old enough to be his mother. Hayes has no concerns about the age difference and this is definitely a “he fell first” book. As I mentioned, I was absolutely fine with the age gap. Both main characters are consenting adults and there’s no power dynamic there that made me feel that Solene had some kind of advantage over Hayes.
I also liked that Solene really wasn’t concerned about her physical appearance with regard to the age gap. This had the potential to be a book where Solene frets over her cellulite or wrinkles, and that really didn’t happen. Solene is confident in her appearance and it felt empowering.
A lot of my issues stem from the fact that Solene is hiding her relationship with Hayes from Isabelle, who thinks he’s a client. While I don’t think a twelve-year-old is entitled to know who her mom is dating, the dynamic here is slightly different. Isabelle is in love with Hayes from afar, the way many preteen girls are. She dreams of marrying him someday. So the fact that Solene is in a relationship with him is inevitably going to crush her when she finds out, even if her dreams might be unrealistic. Also there are plenty of moments when Solene and Hayes are in public together—laying low but certainly being photographed together is possible. At one point a friend recognizes Solene from a picture where she’s facing away from the camera. If I had an issue with how much Isabelle would be hurt by her mom’s relationship with Hayes, I had a much bigger issue with the fact that Isabelle might find out about it from TMZ.
I was incredibly sensitive to the fact that Isabelle would be hurt by her mom’s relationship with her crush, but even more so with the fact that her mom was potentially hurting her more by lying about the nature of her relationship with Hayes. It made me really dislike Solene at certain times.
Hayes himself doesn’t have a ton of depth. There’s a mention of him liking older women, and he admits to Solene that when he was 14 he slept his bandmate’s 19 year old sister (he says consensually, but maybe he should unpack that in therapy IDK), but that plotline around his attraction to older women went nowhere. Mostly he exists as a vehicle for Solene to find herself and celebrity her sexuality as a middle aged woman.
A lot was made of Solene being wealthy, French and part of the art world (actually I enjoyed the tidbits about her art career) and part of me wondered if that was just who she was as a character or if it was meant as some sort of justification for why Hayes would want her. She’s French! She’s posh! At one point she describes Vegas as too American and too fat.
The thing that really frustrated me though was the ending. I went into this book expecting one thing and got another, which meant all the pain Solene and Hayes (and eventually Isabelle) go through feels like it was for naught. I hadn’t seen the movie that’s based on this book when I read it, but I understand that the ending is different.
I really struggled with the grade for this review, as I did like reading about an older heroine and I liked that she was confident in her body and sexuality. I didn’t love how she treated her daughter at all, and the end really made me frustrated—like I experienced vicarious anxiety and conflict for nothing. I would really caution romance readers regarding this book, especially if they come to this after watching the movie. You might not get what you were looking for.
The movie version does correct a lot of things and is the rare case where the movie is better than the book. For one, they age Isabelle up to 17 and make her a former not current fan of the band. They also give Hayes more depth and age him up to 24. The movie also spends more time reflecting on the bullshit double standard that is a 40-year-old woman dating a 24-year-old pop star. If the ages were reversed and Hayes was 40 and famous, literally no one would bat an eyelash at him dating someone 16 years younger. It would almost be expected.
The ending of the movie is also better.
So if the idea of The Idea of You intrigues you, check out the movie, not the book.
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Totally totally agree – the movie wasn’t bad at all (I’m married to a guy 11 years younger than me. When we met, he was 22 and I was 33 and it was an issue. Now? Silver wedding anniversary in 3 years!) but the book did not do it. It really felt like Solene was unable to make a firm decision when it was necessary – and also that she couldn’t decide if 20 was an adult or not. If it’s not, then why are you sleeping with the guy? If it is, then why aren’t you respecting his choices and his decisions? I also loved the Meet-Awkward between the two in the movie, and that the daughter totally got that if Hayes was going out with her mum, it didn’t make him her dad – but it was nice that they could be friends and equals. (Again, my teenage son dealing with stepfather was not an easy path to navigate). So yeah, completely agree with the rating, and so glad that those changes happened for the movie.
I’ve avoided both book and movie due to the word real-person fanfic vibes – don’t get me wrong, I love fanfic that’s for fans and by fans – but RPF for profit is not my thing. I’ve also avoided After, but at least that’s honest about its fanfic origins.
The ending is just the kicker.
This is a tangent, but! I think navigating kids in a romance is so tricky and I think sometimes these books that are meant to be “big books” or “crossover books” handle it more poorly than a more low key romance. They want kids for conflict, but not to slow down the plot (I get it, but come on, guys)
I don’t want a million treacly scenes with kids and romantic partners, but I read one romance (that had ‘future Hallmark movie’ written all over it) where the hero literally decided he was going to marry the heroine and change his religion for her at the climax of the book and then was like “oh and I should introduce her to my kid too. I know they’ll love each other!” Keep in mind his daughter was also going to have to change her religion too for this woman she has not met and doesn’t know her dad is in love with.
What? What? I was that Madeline Kahn “flames on the side of my face” gif.
I read it a while back, knowing nothing about it. I was expecting it to be a romance and for the most part it was. I was annoyed and gut-punched when it ended where it did and was very pleased the film made the change.
I read this back in 2018 and don’t remember a ton except that I was bummed by the end too (see Elyse’s spoiler), but I did give it 5 stars in my book tracking so I apparently did love it a lot. I do though remember telling some of my coworkers at the time that I enjoyed it which then ended up being hilarious because one of them read it, thought it was so spicy and couldn’t believe I read “books like that” and I basically had to tell her that it was barely spicy on my own radar (as I read all the books and have no shame about it).
Anyway now reading this I may have to watch the movie on Prime (the only streaming I actually have) just to see how they handle the ending.
@Jill Q – I want that title because holy wow.
The book’s way weaker than the movie for allll of these reasons.
I read an article interviewing the author post-movie, and it almost seemed like the author was miffed about the movie’s HEA. Loved the movie.
@Lisa F, I have erased it from my brain! Sorry 🙂
> Also I was pretty surprised by the ending which is very different from the movie the book is based on.
Typo: the book isn’t based on the movie, it’s the other way round.
I’ve been a bit curious about this movie and may want to watch it, since I like Anne Hathaway. Good to know all of this about the book so I can avoid reading that. 🙂 Thanks for the review!
I agree with your review almost completely! I think when I read the book (I read the book before seeing the movie so I went into the movie with a lot of trepidation) I didn’t really like the amount that Isabelle effected the relationship. But I don’t have kids so I guess it’s different if you do.
I was very angry with the book as it’s being marketed as a romance when it is NOT a romance in fact. I was angry at Robinne Lee for the ending. I was getting angry at the movie producers for marketing the movie as a rom com. I was angry all around at the bait and switch. But I gave them the benefit of the doubt hoping that they would “fix” the mistakes of the book. And they did! I feel very sorry for people who are buying the version of the book with the movie poster cover and who are expecting the same experience. Ugh. Poor them.
I should add that I had no problem with the age difference. 🙂 I dated a 23 year old when I was 47. It was fun for a few months but ultimately real men are not mature enough when they are the same age as you.
I was trying to figure out if I wanted to read it first and this helped me decide. Def movie.
I thought the book was very well written. It tracked a romance through the eyes of an accomplished, mature woman that knew better but fell down that slippery slope that infatuation greases. It had themes of empowerment and subjugation, misogyny and adoration, achievement and loss, celebrity culture, social norms and free will. Yes, the damage done to her daughter was horrible; and Solene was blinded and enthralled. It ended exactly how it should have. I think that labelling it a Romance is largely to blame for negative reviews; it was more of a Tragedy such as Romeo and Juliet, Titanic, Brokeback Mountain or Atonement. But there was beauty and humanity in the tragedy of broken hearts.