It’s no secret–I love a little magical realism. Like can’t resist it. Like when I see a premise that sounds a little like BIG or 13 GOING ON 30 or THE GOOD PART, I’m wildly and immediately ‘in’. I just love the fun of these types of stories and feel like they shake up the romance genre in a way that’s playful and refreshing. So Kate Robb’s new novel, PRIME TIME ROMANCE, seemed immediately promising to me–a young divorcee, Brynn, and her roommate, Josh, get sucked into her favorite DAWSON’S CREEK-esque teen show, CARSON’S COVE, and have to deliver a happy ending for one of the main characters of the show. Cute! And while I did totally appreciate all the teen 90s nostalgia this book was dripping in, I felt like the author struggled with execution here both of the premise and of the romance and this one just did not end up living up to my enthusiasm for the concept.
The first challenge for PRIME TIME ROMANCE is that Robb immediately starts to complicate the premise as soon as Brynn and Josh arrive in Carson’s Cove. They’re not just new neighbors to town, they show up in character as two characters from the show, 10 years after the show has gone off the air. They have to figure out how to get back to their own lives, a rule I never really figured out. It seemed so complicated to have them playing other characters because as a reader, you have to get to know Brynn as well as Sloan, the character she’s playing, and their different personalities as well as everything that’s happened to both in the last 10 years–and then they’re both being played by the same person. Same thing with Josh and Fletch. It’s super confusing and meanwhile all the characters of Carson’s Cove just see them as Sloan and Fletch, which felt so strange to me. It just felt like it would have been so much easier to have Brynn and Josh be new neighbors to town, maybe a fake dating situation, and then have to influence Sloan and Fletch’s happy endings that way.
Brynn is also so enamored with the CARSON’S COVE show that I couldn’t help but feel a little judgy of her when she was pointing out that she knew every detail of every tiny little thing that had ever happened on the show since she’d watched the entire series numerous times. To me, the fake show sounded really teen, and the idea of a 30 year old woman with no friends and no real career prospects sitting around watching this show over and over again just felt kind of sad. I understand the appeal of DAWSON’S CREEK beyond just teen viewers, and certainly 30 year old women have driven the success of a lot of teen shows like PRETTY LITTLE LIARS or GOSSIP GIRL, but the tonnage here felt overly sad. Like there are lots of great shows! Time to fan-girl on something else. It all just read like arrested development to me, and I didn’t enjoy Brynn as a character.
Not engaging with Brynn makes investing in her romance with Josh extremely challenging. Josh seemed like an ok guy, but he was a bit surface. I did not see a connection between him and Brynn at all, so when they were all of a sudden flinging themselves at each other, I wasn’t on the ride. Add in two very out of nowhere, very open door sex scenes, and I was just not engaged with these two.
There are a lot of other shows to watch and lots of other great books to read too–I think PRIME TIME ROMANCE is honestly only for readers who could rival Brynn’s obsession with teen drama and 90s nostalgia. Otherwise, I’ve got lots of other suggestions for you!
2.5 out of 5
Synopsis (from Amazon):
Newly divorced on the eve of her thirtieth birthday, Brynn is sick of heartbreak. She thought she had found her happy ending, but now she’s living with a roommate, Josh, to afford her mortgage, and she’s trying to adjust to her new single life. At least she’s got Carson’s Cove to binge, her beloved 2000s teenage soap. The show ended unexpectantly on a cliffhanger after five seasons, and the two main characters, Sloan and Spencer, never got to declare their love for each other. The show is still perfect in Brynn’s eyes; despite all the drama that goes down, things always have a way of working out in Carson’s Cove . . . unlike her own life.
So when a birthday cake surprisingly shows up on her and Josh’s doorstep, Brynn makes a wish for the one thing she’s always wanted (but has failed to achieve herself): a happily-ever-after.
The next morning, she doesn’t wake up in her apartment. She’s in Carson’s Cove . . . and Josh is there too. Everyone seems to know them, except they’re not Brynn and Josh; they’re Sloan, the sweetheart of Carson’s Cove, and Fletch, the town’s bad boy. And to get home, they have to make Brynn’s wish come true by ensuring Sloan and Spencer, the hometown heartthrob, end up together at last. But as they spend more time together, Brynn and Josh realize that Carson’s Cove might not be as perfect as seen on television . . . especially when they start developing feelings for each other in a plot twist no one has expected. Will they stick to the script, or will real love change the story forever?
