This may be one of the strangest books I’ve ever read. I’m not 100% sure how I feel about it.
The Arc is a matchmaking service that claims it can find you your partner for life, for an extortionate fee. Ursula is fed up with dating, so she decides to take the plunge. But things don’t turn out how she had expected.
I have to give some praise to just how unusual this book was. It is a brave and clever thing to be able to step outside of ‘the norm’ and come up with such completely new concepts. Especially as this was a debut, suggesting there may be more future books that break the barriers of contemporary fiction. Unfortunately for me, at times I found some of the ideas particularly cringy. I also really struggled to connect to both Ursula and Rafael. I find it so hard to love a book, especially one based on romance, if I am not rooting for the characters.
That being said I did connect to Ursula’s love for her cat Mallory. I am also a weird cat lover and found myself chuckling at these parts. I actually wanted more Mallory parts, she bought so much life! I also loved the idea of women making it in a workplace environment where they have not been listened to previously. This book definitely had some important underlying messages, I just fear that they got lost in the strangeness of everything else. At times, some of the messages did become a little preachy too, which just isn’t for me. For example, the main characters seem to be against people having too much money, but are very clearly doing well financially compared to the average person. This is definitely the most unique romance novel I’ve ever read though.
I would recommend this to any fans of feminist romantic fiction, as long as you don’t mind strange!
The Arc is a matchmaking service that claims it can find you your partner for life, for an extortionate fee. Ursula is fed up with dating, so she decides to take the plunge. But things don’t turn out how she had expected.
I have to give some praise to just how unusual this book was. It is a brave and clever thing to be able to step outside of ‘the norm’ and come up with such completely new concepts. Especially as this was a debut, suggesting there may be more future books that break the barriers of contemporary fiction. Unfortunately for me, at times I found some of the ideas particularly cringy. I also really struggled to connect to both Ursula and Rafael. I find it so hard to love a book, especially one based on romance, if I am not rooting for the characters.
That being said I did connect to Ursula’s love for her cat Mallory. I am also a weird cat lover and found myself chuckling at these parts. I actually wanted more Mallory parts, she bought so much life! I also loved the idea of women making it in a workplace environment where they have not been listened to previously. This book definitely had some important underlying messages, I just fear that they got lost in the strangeness of everything else. At times, some of the messages did become a little preachy too, which just isn’t for me. For example, the main characters seem to be against people having too much money, but are very clearly doing well financially compared to the average person. This is definitely the most unique romance novel I’ve ever read though.
I would recommend this to any fans of feminist romantic fiction, as long as you don’t mind strange!