Jasmine Guillory is the New York Times bestselling author of five romance novels, including The Wedding Date and The Proposal. Her work has appeared in Real Simple, Cosmopolitan, and O, The Oprah Magazine. She lives in Oakland, California. You can find her at at jasmineguillory.com. You can find more of my reviews of Jasmine's works here.
Ben Stephens has never bothered with serious relationships. He has plenty of casual dates to keep him busy, family drama he's trying to ignore, and his advertising job to focus on. When Ben lands a huge ad campaign featuring movie star Anna Gardiner, however, it's hard to keep it purely professional. Anna is not just gorgeous and sexy, she's also down-to-earth and considerate, and he can't help flirting a little . . . Anna Gardiner is on a mission to make herself a household name, and this ad campaign will be a great distraction while we waits to hear if she's booked her next movie. What she didn't expect is Ben Stephens to be her biggest distraction. She knows mixing business with pleasure never works out, but why not indulge in a harmless flirtation? Then their lighthearted banter takes a turn for the serious when Ben helps Anna with a family emergency, and they reveal truths about themselves to each other, truths they've barely shared with those closest to them. When the opportunity comes to turn their real-life fling into something more for the Hollywood spotlight, will Ben be content to play the background role in Anna's life and leave when the cameras stop rolling? Or could he be the leading man she needs to craft their own Hollywood ending?
Unlike her other novels, Guillory's male lead Ben Stephens seems to steal the spotlight in While We Were Dating. What I mean by that is, Guillory is mostly driving the story though Ben's point of view, despite his "underdog" characterization (in that, he's not famous like Anna is, and usually Guillory doesn't drive the story as much through her male characters). This is definitely a shift for Guillory, as she usually utilizes the woman's eyes more. To me, this suggests that Guillory is very much focused on developing and portraying her male characters in the same way as her female characters—and, that maybe she wanted to try something new! While she's utilized alternating point of views between her male and female characters since The Wedding Date, she hasn't done so in such an effective way until her latest books, Party of Two and While We Were Dating. It's been so much fun to watch Guillory grow in her writing, and it is this growth and experimentation that helps make While We Were Dating such a fun, creative, strong, insightful novel.
Anna is a fantastic character, and from the start I loved how real she felt. Being a Black, plus-sized Hollywood star and mental health advocate is not easy, something we learn alongside Anna as she undergoes her journey. I keep mentioning how I enjoyed how authentic this book was, and the authenticity of Anna's character is a big part of that. Everything about Anna's character was clearly thought out, which meant Guillory was portraying a character that felt like she existed in real life. One of the ways I related to Anna was with the size of her body, and some of the lines Guillory wrote about size (in both Anna's and Ben's points of view, I might add) made my heart swell (especially the paragraph at the end of page 65). Anna's anxiety and the introduction of her past was thoughtful and generous, leaving readers space to relate while also giving Anna enough time in the story to be comfortable enough to share such deep, personal stories. I'm so glad that Guillory got to create a character like Anna and bring her to light, especially in this day and age. I find myself so excited that there are going to be readers out there who are going to relate so deeply with Anna, just as I did, and that's honestly one of the best things about a great book.
It's clear everyone, especially after the last year, that there needs to be more of an emphasis on taking care of our mental healths. Mental health has been on the forefront of everyone's minds recently, and it's incredibly refreshing to see an author and their characters openly discussing it, and thus normalizing the experience of going to therapy and taking anxiety medications. Not only does Guillory integrate real conversations about mental health, but she also integrates healthy habits to maintain a good mental health (such as characters going to therapy and talking about that with others, recognizing when to say that you're not okay, using breathing techniques, and more). Having these open discussions is actually what helps us understand that these characters clearly trust and respect each other, especially early on in their relationship. Because, if we see them trusting each other enough to share the darkest parts of their lives, then of course it's only natural that they could develop deeper feelings and fall into a very honest, open relationship. I am a big fan of these authentic, relevant conversations in romance novels, and was very pleased at Guillory's thoughtful, considerate, genuine conversations about mental health.
The only thread not knitted up fully for me was related to the ad campaign that brought Ben and Anna together. We didn't get any closure about how the final product looked—did Ben get a raise, potentially, for his great presentation and a job well done? did Anna get any extra publicity that helped her get the Varon role? I think one or two sentences would have been enough to clear this up, and I wished we'd gotten it, since this ad campaign was the whole reason they ended up together in the first place!
Thankfully, Jasmine has five other novels for us to enjoy before she announces her next project (which I sincerely hope is going to be announced soon!). For now, you can find more of Jasmine at jasmineguillory.com, and you can find more of my reviews of Jasmine's works here.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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