By: Cait Marie
Blurb
A wedding harpist disillusioned with love and a hopeless romantic cater-waiter flirt and fight their way through a summer of weddings.
Quinn Berkowitz and Tarek Mansour’s families have been in business together for years: Quinn’s parents are wedding planners, and Tarek’s own a catering company. At the end of last summer, Quinn confessed her crush on him in the form of a rambling email—and then he left for college without a response.
Quinn has been dreading seeing him again almost as much as she dreads another summer playing the harp for her parents’ weddings. When he shows up at the first wedding of the summer, looking cuter than ever after a year apart, they clash immediately. Tarek’s always loved the grand gestures in weddings—the flashier, the better—while Quinn can’t see them as anything but fake. Even as they can’t seem to have one civil conversation, Quinn’s thrown together with Tarek wedding after wedding, from performing a daring cake rescue to filling in for a missing bridesmaid and groomsman.
Quinn can’t deny her feelings for him are still there, especially after she learns the truth about his silence, opens up about her own fears, and begins learning the art of harp-making from an enigmatic teacher.
Maybe love isn’t the enemy after all—and maybe allowing herself to fall is the most honest thing Quinn’s ever done.
Review
I have had multiple Rachel Lynn Solomon books on my TBR for a while now, and with a friend consistently telling me to read them, I finally jumped in. And I’m so glad I did.
This book was light and fun, exactly what I needed right now. But it also had some pretty serious points.
As someone who struggled to find what I wanted to do with life for years, I really appreciated this story. The romance is adorable and meaningful, but the part that really stood out to me was Quinn growing and learning about herself. She’s tired of just doing what she’s told and doesn’t want to join the family business; she wants to find her own path. But she’s not the only one trying to figure things out, and her discovering this is extremely important. At that age in particular, there is so much pressure to make these life-altering decisions, and this book shows that it’s okay not to know 100% what you want to do.
There are also discussions on family dynamics, such as separation, and mental health. Quinn struggles with OCD, but what I really loved was that it is just a part of who she is. She takes her medicine, mentions going to therapy in the past, and shows that sometimes it’s triggered more than others, but it isn’t the focus of the book.
Slight spoiler
It also explains how Tarek’s lack of communication was due to severe depression. He was in his first year of college and not doing well because he couldn’t bring himself to leave his bed and such, let alone keep up friendships/relationships. I went through this exact same situation, almost failing out of college and everything, so it was extremely relatable. Reading that part, when he’s describing his experience, I kept thinking, “Wow, this is absolutely me.” Like it was kind of creepy how accurate it was. But it made me love him and this book even more.
End spoiler
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started this book. I’d assumed it would be just a fun YA romance that would take my mind off of all the stress I’m currently dealing with (ironically, I figured things out and am about to graduate with master’s and a 4.0). We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This was exactly that, but it was also so much more. It was deep and relatable, and it was so well written. I thoroughly enjoyed it and can’t wait to read more by Solomon!
Functionally Fictional 
Leave a Reply