Review: The Second You're Single

The Second You're Single by Cara Tanamachi
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

1.5 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

This year, we should all go on a dating cleanse. 

 Goodbye, Dry January. Hello, Solo February. 

Sora is over Valentine's Day, feeling bad about her appearance, and like she has to keep up in the dating world. When she publishes an article for the magazine she freelances for, she suddenly finds herself the popular leader of the #GoSolo February movement. So, of course, she runs into an old grade school classmate that has grown up right. Jack is working in a grocery store as their baker after losing his prestigious job working under a chef at a Michelin-star restaurant due to his now ex-fiancee. He's up for a baker of the year award and hopes to use the prize money to open his own bakery soon. When he sees the girl he had a massive crush on in school and then they start talking and he realizes she's still a funny and smart person, his crush comes roaring back. But personal and professional issues keep creeping up between these two. 

This is not my meet-cute. I am not in a rom-com. I am in a horror movie. 

The Second You're Single definitely leaned into the biting part of “biting rom-com” with a tone, secondary characters, and comments that weren't the most fun to read about. Told in first person pov chapters between Sora and Jack, I'm not sure there was clear definition between their character voices. Sora had more bitterness to her but the sense of humor between the characters that brought them together also made them sound the same. Sora is divorced after finding out her husband was cheating on her, the husband that she pregnancy scare married, she ended up miscarrying, and has bounced from man to man, the last being a man who she found out ended up being married. With her younger sister Nami getting married in a month, her mother breathing down her neck to lose weight, have a date for the wedding, and Valentine's Day coming up, Sora decides to let all the dating balls in the air drop and go solo all of February. The article she publishes for a magazine gets super popular and while her personal life feels in shambles, her professional life seems to be picking up.

I’ve wanted to kiss this man since I first saw him frosting baked goods at Margo’s. 

With a declaration to be single all of February, Sora, of course, meets Jack. They did have an entertaining meet-cute, Sora's ex-husband and his new girlfriend make an appearance and Jack kind of saves Sora, and I liked the two's banter at first. We learn more about Jack and how he's dealing with a stalker of an ex-fiancee who has the money to really devote herself and is trying to buy the building Jack wants his bakery in so they can be “partners” and she can get back in his life, after cheating on Jack with her brother-in-law. Jack's ex-fiancee Mal, and Sora's ex-husband's girlfriend get that Other Woman treatment and it never felt great how Sora's character thinking pitted herself against thinner, more health conscious women. From Sora's point-of-view the women give her “looks”, and maybe they do in the story, but this “I love bacon, therefore they hate me and I'm less shallow than them.” felt very tired. There was a didn't need to be this long scene where Sora's sister and mom take her to an aerial aerobics class and the whole thing felt cringy '80s movie. There was also this line thought by Sora: I can tell he’s got big, thick, muscular arms, and the tiniest hint of a beer belly. Not gross big, just a slight, comforting pudge. “Not gross big,”??? I was confused and turned off by how this story was going about it's messaging. 

“Sounds like you kind of have a crush on me, Jack Mann.” 

You can probably see where this was going, Sora gaining professional success with her go solo articles but meeting Jack and really liking his company and wanting to go out on the dates Jack is asking her to go. You might also think, “Well, they only have to wait a month.”. At halfway through, these two admit the elementary school crushes they had on each other and jump in the sack, a jump in the sack scene that had some good sexual lead up but just as the condom went on, we're abruptly slam-to-black and Sora's waking up the next morning. By 60% they admit their love for one another but Jack gets up in his feels about feeling like Sora's dirty little secret as she keeps promoting that men suck. There's some dealing with their issues, Sora growing up being told by her mom to not stick her neck out and dealing with how her father's temper (he died of a heart-attack/stroke a year ago) still affects her today and Jack deals with his trust issues and current stalking issues from his ex-fiancee. Their family and friends get brought in with Sora's friend Stella the psychologist giving her advice and her troubled relationship with mom and sister and Jack's younger brother having marriage problems with his wife after their young daughter is in remission from cancer. I'm not sure I'd market this as a rom-com with these very decidedly not laugh riot issues thrown in all over the place. 

“So, I’m not going to be afraid of broken hearts. That just comes with living. Just a risk we all take to find happiness.” 

The ending gives us Sora putting a dent in her career by trying to be gutsy and go for Jack, but it blows up with a Big Misunderstanding (the way Sora completely ruined a huge moment for Jack left a bad taste in my mouth). Then the last 20% was a flurry of everyone's relationships and issues getting happy resolves, some feeling less forced than others. This story took place over a month's time and I can't say I believed in Sora and Jack's love. The biting tone had some off-putting moments and the rom-com aspects were drowned out with some pretty serious issues. I would also feel remiss not mentioning that the dog on the cover did not in anyway match Sora's rescue pit mix, Larry who was described as black and white with a colored black patch over the eye that was missing. Justice for Larry (and maybe rom-coms?).

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