Rachel Lynn Solomon is the bestselling author of love stories for teens and adults, including The Ex Talk, Today Tonight Tomorrow, and Weather Girl. Originally from Seattle, she's currently navigating expat life with her husband in Amsterdam, where she's on a mission to try as many Dutch sweets as possible. You can find Rachel at RachelSolomonBooks.com, and on Instagram and Twitter @RLynn_Solomon. You can find more of my reviews of Rachel's works here.
Ari Abrams has always been fascinated by the weather, and she loves almost everything about her job as a TV meteorologist. Her boss, legendary Seattle weatherwoman Torrance Hale, is too distracted by her tempestuous relationship with her ex-husband, the station's news director, to give Ari the mentorship she wants. Ari, who runs on sunshine and optimism, is at her wits' end. The only person who seems to understand how she feels is sweet but reserved sports reporter Russell Barringer. In the aftermath of a disastrous holiday party, Ari and Russell decide to team up to solve their bosses' relationship issues. Between secret gifts and double dates, they start nudging their bosses back together. But their well-meaning meddling backfires when the real chemistry builds between Ari and Russell. Working closely with Russell means allowing him to get to know parts of herself that Ari keeps hidden from everyone. Will he be able to embrace her dark clouds as well as her clear skies?
An author's note at the beginning of the text prefaces the personal ties to the novel's subject matter of mental health, and after the events of the past two years, it's impossible to ignore the way our mental health affects everything about how we view the world. Weather Girl is one of the few contemporary romance novels that tackles mental health as a huge cornerstone of its development, and I certainly hope it paves the way for future authors to give mental health a bigger role in their novels. Ari has depression—as the author takes care to point out, it's not an "end all be all" depiction, but just one person's experience with it—and she filters her life through her previous experiences with her mom, her past relationships, and how her depression has affected her past. Solomon provides a depiction of depression that is painstakingly real and raw, and I cannot stress how important that is. This care to describe what it truly means to be human, especially for someone with something like depression, makes Weather Girl a more powerful story than just a charming office romance. It makes the novel one that has the power to move thousands of readers, and to remain a powerful cornerstone of the genre.
My absolute favorite part about Weather Girl is the way Solomon seamlessly combines heavier, more real elements with the charming, quirky, contemporary romance novel tropes we all love. I was struck by how the novel reminded me of Set It Up (alas, I have never seen the Parent Trap), of how silly some of the stunts Ari and Russell pulled were, and how incredibly wholesome the progression of their romance was. Combined with the thoughtful descriptions of Ari's past, depression, Russell's parenting experience, the Jewish experience around Christmas time, and so much more, this novel held a power I've so rarely seen in this genre. It has the ability to both make you cheer for the protagonists, while also really evaluating the world we live in, and forcing readers to take a look at their part in the world's compassion. Balancing the fun com-com elements with the more realistic, actual human life experience made this novel so much more rewarding than a book that portrayed your cookie-cutter characters playing out a cookie-cutter plot with a guaranteed happily ever after. In Weather Girl, the characters worked for it, and they earned it.
The writing, of course, has a great deal to do with this. For Solomon, a lot of the topics were personal, and the novel definitely reads that way. There is a lot of care in the depictions of depression, and really poignant reflections on the meaning of family and religion. There is so much compassion when describing Elodie's and Russell's relationship, and hilarity in the hijinks between Torrance and Seth. The sexy scenes are definitely sexy, and I do have to agree with Solomon that the sexiest thing of all is someone who can love you through the dark days, too. You read this book for the heartfelt, deserved love story and the romance—the compassionate, warm writing will keep you reading until the smallest hours of the morning, and will make you miss Ari and Russell the second that last page is finished.
Readers will rejoice in the representation across the board in this book. I know I did! There is a Jewish heroine and hero (and a heroine-in-wait? Elodie certainly should get her own novel!). A neurodivergent heroine, and a mental health journey that spans two generations. A plus-sized hero! I absolutely adored this element, and wish Solomon had included a bit more, but seeing as how Russell's story as a teen parent can be seen as arguably more compelling, I can't disagree too much with the balancing act of his story. A love story that's a rediscovery story—Torrance's and Seth's journey back to one another cannot be discounted, nor can we discount the value of falling in love when we're older, not younger. Their story holds so much of the novel's hope. Gay parents with adorable fraternal twins—Alex's and Javier's story could also be its own novel. The thing about all this representation, too: it never once feels like Solomon is tossing in another element due to an extraneous "representation checklist" like it can sometimes feel like. A lot of this is in the novel because it just is. I'm not sure how else to describe it—if you want to find out for yourself what I mean, you'll just have to pick up the book yourself!
Lastly, I wanted to briefly mention the lovely family dynamics with the book. There is so much going on within the realm of family, I could probably write a paper about it (in a good way!). Ari's relationship with her family is fraught, colored by her experience with her mom and with her own depression, clouding her ability to always remember the good things in conjunction with the bad. But we also see Ari's relationship with her brother's family, and what it's like to be an aunt. There's also Russell's blended family, one borne of hard work and dedication, and a whole lot of love and compassion. Their family is so beautifully depicted, and again it's something I wish we got more of (or can maybe see more of in another novel). Ari is rediscovering the power of family, and in reinventing oneself within a family. She's even uncovered a found family at the station, one that includes Torrance and Seth, against all odds. This novel just ended on the most beautiful note about family and about life, and makes me hopeful for the future not only of contemporary romance as a genre, but for humanity and human kind.
I can't wait to see what Rachel Lynn Solomon writes next! Until then, you can find Rachel at RachelSolomonBooks.com, and on Instagram and Twitter @RLynn_Solomon. You can find more of my reviews of Rachel's works here.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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