While waiting for the second installment of Kate Elliott’s Spiritwalker series to become available, I decided to listen to a different Kate – contemporary romance author Kate Goldbeck. First I sped through Daddy Issues, which involves zero daddy play, and I thought it was good, so I downloaded You, Again, which was amazing.
I love “unlikable” women – messy, bitchy, angry, depressed, immature, flailing – all of it. Ari (You, Again) and Sam (Daddy Issues) are the messiest and I love them so much.
You, Again is Reylo fanfic crossed with When Harry Met Sally, but more than that pairing implies. Josh is Ben Solo who didn’t become a genocidal fascist – he’s trying to stand apart and over his family’s heritage (an iconic Manhattan Jewish deli). His insecurities make him snobby, snappish, and prone to lash out. He starts out the book as kind of a shit, but again, not a genocidal fascist. You get all the Adam Driver ugly hot inspired goodness with none of the murder. When he and Ari meet, they are both sleeping with her roommate (not together). They meet a few times over the years, but it isn’t until they’ve both had their hearts ripped out that they develop a friendship.
Their initial area of conflict when they meet is romance – Ari doesn’t believe in it and sleeps around casually refusing to form attachments. Josh is looking for his forever person and has some good arguments about what a relationship can be, but he’s too focused on an ideal right person. Ironically, it is Ari who gets married, and then divorced, first. Josh tries to remake his father’s legacy into his own and is soundly rebuffed by the dining public. At their lowest points, they meet again in a high end sex toy boutique and develop an unlikely friendship. Of course, they eventually have sex and blow it all up.
The allusions to When Harry Met Sally and Reylo add a nice layer, but aren’t necessary for enjoying the story. I loved that these two complete disasters found each other and made each other better people, but they don’t fix each other. I love that they screwed up, apologized and tried again more than once. They teetered on the edge of totally toxic more than once and pulled it back. Kristen DiMercurio was a great narrator. You, Again was a five star read.
As far as I can tell, Daddy Issues isn’t drawing from an existing work, but from relatable experiences – what happens when your life suddenly isn’t going the way you planned and you don’t know how to adapt? Sam was on track for grad school when the Covid 19 pandemic shut everything down. In the years since, funding for her fellowship has disappeared and the research project she planned is no longer possible. Now she lives in her mother’s condo, wears a coconut shell bra to sell fake tropical drinks, and is in a situationship with the bartender. She’s depressed and stuck, and has no idea what to do. Her mother is planning a wedding to her nonbinary partner and strongly hinting she would like Sam to move out. A single dad moves into the condo next door and starts to change everything.
The daddy issues in question are boxes and boxes of comic books that Sam’s father left with her “temporarily” when he moved to Florida. Sam is holding onto the comic books as a link with her father that he does nothing to nurture. Sam knows, even when she’s defending the connection she shared with her father in collecting comics, that she was always the one who valued their relationship more. Nick is the opposite of Sam’s father. He is present for Kira. He’s working an unglamorous job he doesn’t love to provide financial stability for his daughter. He cares about what Kira’s interested in rather than forcing her to be interested in what he likes. He shows that same interest in Sam – he makes her question the way she’s valued herself.
Goldbeck does this great character work with Sam. In comparison, Nick feels like a thinner character and I wish we’d gotten more of him, especially at the end. I might feel that way because I didn’t love the way Harley Quinn Smith voiced him or Kira. Right now, Daddy Issues is a 3.5 star read, but a print copy read might change the way I judge Nick.
What both books do beautifully is show relationships that leave room for mistakes. In leaving room for mistakes, they create room for growth and change. These characters are going to screw up again in the future, but they’ll come back together, apologize, and work through it. I love that.
