Book Review: Would Like to Meet by Rachel Winters

Would Like to Meet by Rachel Winters

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Review is also available on my site: https://roxannacross.com/2025/09/07/b...

Winters brings together all the famous rom-com tropes into this quirky read, available in paperback, hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook formats, at your local library or through the Libby App. The audiobook is read by Laura Hobson, who delivers smooth narration throughout; however, her attempt to differentiate the voices to individualize the characters is somewhat lacking. This is most likely due to Winters’s writing style, which failed to give her characters individual personalities as all of them could bore readers and listeners to tears in equal measure, and they’re all immature and unlikable.

The main character, Evie Summer, must discover if people can fall in love like they do in the movies to save a job she’s held for a gazillion years, one where she’s been harassed, manipulated, overworked, and disrespected, yet she stays and doesn’t stand up for herself. Nope. She hopes doing these humiliating meet-cutes all over London will finally land her the promotion she covets. So, off she goes spilling drinks on strangers, getting herself stuck in grates, leaving her number in books all over town to see who calls, and so on, reenacting the best Hollywood rom-com scenes to prove to an unappreciative boss and an elite client who refuses to write the script he’s paid for that meet-cutes work in real life. Winters portrays a self-absorbed, without a backbone, foolish main character who blames all her mistakes on being overworked, making a terrible friend. Frankly, it’s nearly impossible to relate to or connect with Evie.

Ezra Chester, the elite client, paid yet refuses to write a script, and manipulates Evie in his own way. He’s detestable as a character, a vain peacock counting on his looks and charms to get what he wants. He will deliberately make noise when people are talking to ignore them, and somehow, Evie still manages to fall for his game, sending him reports of her meet-cutes for inspiration to encourage him to write the script, thinking she’s helping him get over writer’s block. These reports, as per his request, must be pre-formatted, well-written, with as much dialogue as possible, and edited. Come on, wake up, Evie. Big red flag here. And if that’s not enough, has he ever sent you his written pages of the script when requested? Oh, second red flag missed naïve, foolish girl. The only good part of Ezra is his dog, Ziggy.

In Evie’s boss, Monty Winters, showcases a toxic agency environment perfect for a workplace harassment suit. He purposely squashes any advancement opportunities Evie attempts by giving bad references because he doesn’t want to lose his assistant, who does, well, everything for him, including getting him out of women’s toilets and cleaning poop out of his expensive office carpet. Why introduce such a despicable personage, if it’s to make readers and listeners empathize with Evie, she would first have to stand up for herself and not lie down like a doormat.

Now for the father-daughter duo, who witness more than one of Evie’s meet-cutes gone wrong, Ben and Annette. Ben is judgmental from the start, boring as watching paint dry because he barely speaks, yet this is the love interest Winters selects? Admittedly, Annette is sweet and brave and will make attempts to bring her dad and Evie together. She and Ziggy are the bright spots in this book.

Lastly, Evie’s circle of friends run on two speeds: rooting for Evie and her meet-cutes and anger for her neglect. It’s unnerving how one minute they’re sending texts of encouragement, potential meet-cute options, not-a-pervert-Paul or drunk-driver-David, and the next they’re upset because Evie is flaking out on them, again. Why are they so up in arms when it’s been established that Evie will put her job above all else? It’s all she thinks and talks about, ultimately ruining a friend’s bachelorette party even the wedding celebration. Are the friends justified in their anger, perhaps, but they’re also participants in the meet-cute game that caused it all in the first place; therefore, it’s hard to feel anything for them.

All in all, this comes to a 1.5-star read or listen.



View all my reviews