Proceed With Caution:
This book contains crossing personal boundaries.
The Basics:
You Deserve Each Other is a very unique Contemporary Romance, narrated by Naomi who wants to ditch her fiance but won't be the one to end the relationship. What ensues is a ton of passive aggressive antics and some straight up aggression as she tries to outlast him, instead finding herself falling in love with him all over again.
My Thoughts:
I wasn't quite sure what to expect going into You Deserve Each Other since my GR friends' reviews are split. This is a true hate-to-love romance. Naomi and Nicholas have been together for nearly two years, with their wedding just three months away. However, Naomi wants out. She hates the way he dotes on his mother and not her. She hates how her friends hate him. She hates just about everything about him at this point, including how he won't dump her despite everything she's doing to push him away. Yikes.
You Deserve Each Other was something extremely unique and I think much needed. It's rare to see an established couple go through something this huge and find their way back to each other. Sure, second chance romances are everywhere, but they've been broken up for some time. Naomi and Nick are about to get married! I desperately wanted to know what the heck went wrong to bring this couple to this point. We don't get a definitive answer to that, but it comes down to them not communicating. Of course.
I have to say that despite Naomi being our sole narrator, I was on Nick's side. You Deserve Each Other is centered on Naomi's need to push Nick over the edge and make him the "bad guy" who called off the wedding. Once she gets this idea in her head, it's a full on war. She interprets everything he does through that lens and she always has to one-up him. I thought Nick was acting pretty normal until her antics started getting out of hand so he starts responding in kind. He's saying what he means (although not saying everything that he wants to) while she's twisting it to fit her crazed narrative. It was wild. Poor, Nick. He had an overbearing mother and a delusional fiance.
There's also a ton of unresolved sexual tension in You Deserve Each Other. They hadn't been having sex, and they do discuss why. It totally made sense. But when their war reaches a peak, dang. There's definitely some heated glances and too close touching and I was screaming for them to just call a truce and get it on!
In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed You Deserve Each Other. Naomi was not likable in the slightest at the beginning, but I enjoyed reading about her. She's creating mixed messages out of Nick's words and behaviors and putting on airs herself, so of course neither of them knows what's really going on in the other's head! Once they start letting their guards down, they have really cute and sweet moments together. Obviously, they figure out their issues since this is a Romance novel, but it was a very bumpy road getting there.