A
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Theme: Crush, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn
Archetype: Diverse Protagonists
Wanna Bet by Talia Hibbert is a friends-to-lovers romance and it features–get this!–adults who have to do actual adulting in order to be together! Holy shit! Emotional accountability FTW!
I am personally so sick of books that feature “all my emotional hangups are resolved because I want to put my dick in you!” as the solution to any internal conflict. In Wanna Bet? the hero and heroine had to do actual work on themselves in order to be in a place to be in a relationship and it was SO REFRESHING.
Also this book also has a pining beta hero and that’s so much my thing.
To top it all off, this book is super body positive. How much win can you fit into one book? All of it, apparently.
The hero and heroine of Wanna Bet, Rahul Kahn and Jasmine Allen, have been friends for seven years. They met in college where they slept together once, but when Jasmine told Rahul she doesn’t have sex with her friends (no “with benefits” here), he opted to stay her friend rather than to have what he expected to be a short fling. In the seven years since then, Rahul has been madly in love with Jasmine, but he’s kept that a secret because he knows she doesn’t do serious relationships.
Jasmine is this wonderfully confident character who is unapologetic about finding joy in sex and drinking and laughing too loud, but she’s got her issues. Her mother abandoned her as a child, and Jasmine has been carrying that pain – and the fear that comes with it – around her entire life. Her outwardly boisterous, fun-loving personality hides some deep scars.
One section that really resonated with me was when Jasmine was talking to her friend Asmita. Asmita is struggling because she’s found the perfect partner, but she’s convinced she’ll botch a serious relationship with her:
Jasmine stiffened. “Asmita. I hope you, my intelligent, hard-working, gorgeous, funny friend, are not putting yourself down over some girl.”
“She’s not some girl! She’s special. And I…” Asmita looked down, her jaw shifting, her long, silky hair failing over her eyes. When she spoke up again her voice was soft and hopeless. “Ah, Jas. You know what I’m like. I’ll ruin it. I ruin everything.”
For a moment, Jasmine couldn’t speak. She’d said those same words so often, in the middle of the night, in the safety and threat and possibility of darkness–to herself.
Hearing them come from a women she valued so highly felt like a slap.
I do the same thing as Jasmine. I coach my friends through not engaging in bad self-talk and try to boost them up, all while quietly doing the same self-talk in my head. Hearing another woman whom I respect putting herself down can feel shocking, but it’s something a lot of us do.
Rahul has his issues, too. After his father’s death he took on responsibility for the family and he pushes himself hard. He’s this quiet, hard-working, sensitive man who feels very responsible for his mother and sisters, and I adored him.
Anyway, due to some convenient apartment flooding, Jasmine needs to find a place to stay for a month and winds up living with Rahul. Being in close proximity brings the still very real sexual tension between them front and center.
One thing I adored was how much Rahul loves Jasmine’s body–and it’s a real body. He loves her wide hips. He loves her stretch marks. He loves her entire person and it felt so good to read that. And Jasmine finds herself attractive. She doesn’t bemoan her shape or view it is as some kind of barrier to her finding true love. We have a plus-sized heroine for whom her body is a non-issue.
The book does a good job of balancing Rahul’s love for Jasmine with his ability to respect her boundaries, while still allowing him to call her on commitment phobia. Eventually the tension becomes too much for both of them, and after they sleep together Rahul doesn’t pressure Jasmine, but lets her know that he’s in this for the long term.
It’s a complicated dance around Jasmine’s trust issues, and eventually it comes apart.
What I really loved about this book was that Jasmine and Rahul had to do some hard work in order to find HEA. Jasmine acknowledges that she has trust issues and she goes into therapy. She stops using alcohol as a crutch. Rahul is forced to acknowledge that he’s put some of his own life in a holding pattern in order to keep Jasmine happy. It’s actual adults talking about actual adult things, and it’s an acknowledgement that there isn’t a quick fix to these issues.
Overall I found this book so smart and so satisfying. It took all the romance tropes I love so much and leveled them up. The hero was charming and sexy and respectful, and the heroine was so much fun, but they both have very real issues that they deal with in a healthy way. I’m all about romances that feature that kind of healing. Bring it on.
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I’ve never read Ms Hibbert’s work, but between this review and the love shown for her in the comments, she’s evidently someone I should. So, off to the library and Amazon I go!
I’ve been on a Hibbert binge lately. Her books are great and I really loved this one.
Great review!
That rave review + $2.99 = one-click. Lots of my catnip here, looking forward to reading it.
Oh, I will read any and everything this woman writes. I just… WOW. I’m so glad you love her, too.
I love this review so much! I have been aggressively recommending this book to anyone that loves romance!! Its AMAZING, shouty capitals required for this book!
I enjoyed it a lot. I did sometimes feel that certain sections went on too long and that issues were rehashed more than necessary, but there was so much good in it that I’m glad I read it.
I’d say this was my favourite if it weren’t that I say that about all her books. Rahul is so friggin’ dreamy. Jasmine should be annoying except that her fragility around loving is so believable. It is lovely how Rahul refuses to give up on her. Hibbert’s characters, male and female all seem so very real. And I love the supporting cast as well–the friendships are so strong. She is one of the few authors on my one click
I hear so many great things about Hibbert and I *really* wish there were a buy option other than Amazon. I understand it works well for authors but there are plenty of readers out there who don’t buy from Amazon for a number of reasons.
Her heroes are just so freaking dreamy. Rahul is right behind Evan for the title of Sexiest Beta Hero ever.
Have grown to adore and insta-buy all of Talia Hibbert’s books!
Gahh I wanted to love this book, I really did, especially with a desi hero but somehow I’m now really tired of the “my life has been so hard so I can never be in a committed relationship” trope. Like I know it’s a thing, and maybe I’m just being callous, but I’ve just seen too much of it. The only difference is that now its mostly the heroine who has this trope, rather than the hero. Am I crazy?
This review sounds amazing and I am super ready to read this but – small small but – Rahul Kahn sounds like what Americans think Indian names are. Kahn might be a western surname but it’s so similar to Khan (which is a legitimate Indo-Pak last name) that it just looks to me like someone thought ‘okay what are common Indian names’ and just mashed something up and got it kinda wrong. I could be alone in feeling this, and I am open to being told that i’m being extra finicky but that was like the only thing that kinda bothered me. (There’s also a smaller deal of Rahul being a Hindu first name, and Khan being a Muslim last name, which makes the pairing unusual, but I wouldn’t have an issue with that if the hero’s name was Rahul Khan)
@Tanvee his name is Rahul Khan. Typo in the review above. I found Rahul too good to be true and Jasmine too self-involved.
@Tanvee – Also, in the book (if I remember correctly) there’s even a mention that one of his parents is Hindu and one is Muslim. So, I think she got it right. 🙂
“I adored was how much Rahul loves Jasmine’s body–and it’s a real body.”
What’s a fake body :P?
This is a good review, but it would be loads better without insinuating that “other” body types are fake.
Friends to Lovers and crush-based romances are such a weak spot for me; putting this into my TBR pile!
Gawd, I need more romances like that!!! More, more, more!