A lot of the romance I’ve read this year has leaned more in a rom-commy direction, so it was oddly refreshing to read The Friendship Study by Ruby Barrett and be hit with a heavy but not overwhelming amount of angst… perhaps because the angst felt believable and relatable and age-appropriate for the characters.
When this book starts, Jesse and Lulu are both in the midst of unplanned major life changes. Jesse was in an accident which left him injured and unable to fulfill the duties of his dream job as a third-generation fire fighter. Lulu is back home after a messy breakup that also impacted her career and her living situation… and when I say back home, I mean she’s living in her parents’ ADU.
Neither Jesse nor Lulu are particular happy with their current life circumstances. They’re also both struggling to socialize. Like so many adults, a lot of their friendships were based around work. Jesse feels awkward around his former buddies from the fire house, and Lulu is failing to make in-roads with her coworkers at the university, in part because her dad pulled strings to get her the job.
And so, both Jesse and Lulu end up enrolled in a study at the university focused on determining why millennials struggle to make friends.
But because this is a romance novel, there’s a twist: this is about studying platonic friendship, so the participants are not supposed to date or hook up during the course of the study. Too bad Jesse and Lulu had a pretty awkward date that left them both incredibly horny for the other.
Our two main characters pretty quickly go from being determined to be “just friends” to having a secret “friends with benefits” situation where they have some rules about what “friends” are allowed to do with and for each other. This leads to some pretty hot situations, especially if you enjoy dirty talk and clear communication.
While all this is going on, Jesse is dealing with chronic pain from his injury, as well as the fact that his grandfather has dementia and Jesse never came out to him before his disease progressed to a point where the man no longer recognizes him. Oh yes — Jesse is bisexual, and in fact the person who convinces him to join the friendship study is his ex-boyfriend. Lulu, who is somewhere on the m-spec herself, is totally cool with this, and so this book gets massive points for healthy representation of bisexuality in a M/F relationship.
Lulu’s issues don’t feel as heavy as Jesse’s, but she is reeling from the fact that her fiance cheated on her with her best friend, and struggling to fit in at work, while deciding whether to go back to her old institution. Also, her dad won’t stop meddling in her career, and while she loves him, he’s not doing her any favors, and it’s really hard to be having a fight with one or both of your parents while also living in their ADU for reduced rent. Lulu could easily be a difficult character to like because of her privilege, but I feel like she’s aware of it and trying to navigate it.
Oh, there’s also a cute cat.
There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about this book, but it is a book about two people trying to figure out their shit, and helping each other figure out their shit, and getting hot and heavy along the way. I might not remember it by this time next year, but I enjoyed the experience of reading it.
CWs and TWs: This is an explicitly spicy romance novel. There’s also the aforementioned grandfather with dementia. There’s on-page discussion of past traumatic events including a sexual assault, parental death, and the auto accident that Jesse was injured in.
Format and Source: I read this as an ebook from Sno-Isle Libraries.
Book Bingo Prompts
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): Fresh Starts & Second Chances. Jesse and Lulu are both making fresh starts, with complicated feelings around them. I wouldn’t classify this as a second-chance romance, however, since the time between their first disastrous date and them running into each other again at the study is pretty short.
SBTB Summer Romance: Academia. Lulu works at the university and they are both participating in a study at the university — I had some questions about the ethics and methodology of said study, but since when are things ever accurate in a romance novel?
Book Bingo Progress
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 18 out of 25 prompts complete. 2 bingos.
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 16 out of 25 prompts complete. 2 bingos.
SAL/SPL Adult Summer Reading: 16 out of 23 prompts complete, 3 bingos.
SBTB Summer Romance: 5 out of 24 prompts complete, 0 bingos.