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I read this book because my Boston Asian book club chose it for our February read. It was cute in a way! I felt like I did learn some interesting tidbits related to romance, like how decades ago people tended to meet their romantic partners through close geographical proximity (e.g., living in the same apartment) which has changed now with online dating. The issue of having “too many�� options living in a city made sense to me too (so maybe it’s not just patriarchy’s socialization of men and white supremacy that’s made me romantically single for all of my life, but also living in predominantly urban environments?? intriguing!)

One glaring limitation of this book is the lack of discussion of . I find it almost laughable to write an entire book about romance without discussing heteronormativity and amatonormativity and how they shape the prevalence of romance and the wedding industrial complex in our society. Aziz Ansari kind of almost barely touches on this through mentioning that women’s increased economic power made it so they didn’t have to marry men to access financial security.

I also found a couple of small statements in the book�� annoying in a mosquito bite-y sort of way. For example, Ansari makes a joke about having an “Indian stalker�� and I was kind of eye-rolling about the stalker being Indian, like why do you have to implicate your own race (and it made me think of this broader criticism of Ansari and his ). And in another section of the book he implies that a man he meets isn’t a “stud�� because he’s on the shorter side. Yawn! Where are our critical thinking hats in regard to desirability and gender norms??

I wouldn’t recommend this book though at least the writing was accessible and easy to read. I’m going to be taking notes *for sure* at my next book club meeting especially if anyone actually liked the book lol o_o If anyone is interested, I also write about amatonormativity on my .