REVIEW: Meet Cute (book) by Helena Hunting

Meet Cute is a contemporary romance. I bought my copy used.

Review: 

Content warning for this book: parent death in car crash.

Kailyn is a trust lawyer who's been a huge fan of the show It's My Life since she was a teen (I pictured it in my head as being like The Wonder Years, although maybe it's more Dawson's Creek based on the Monday crying meme). Daxton Hughes is an entertainment lawyer who used to play the main character in It's My Life when he was a teen. The two of them first met in law school, when Kailyn accidentally walked into Dax's Frisbee game and then fangirled all over him. They were friendly rivals during law school, with definite potential for romance, until Dax betrayed Kailyn by turning in one of her assignments for her late. 

Or at least that's how Kailyn recalls things. Dax doesn't seem to remember any of that, at least not judging by his reaction to her when they meet again after Kailyn is hired to set up a trust for Dax's younger sister, Emme. Kailyn figures it won't be a problem...except that 6 months later Dax and Emme's parents die in a car crash, and Dax is unexpectedly named Emme's legal guardian. Linda, their aunt, doesn't react well to this news. When she sues for custody, Kailyn is appointed Emme's conservator.

As Dax and Kailyn spend more time together, Kailyn gradually begins to thaw towards Dax and discovers she has a soft spot for Emme as well. Which creates a problem for her - Kailyn's been promised a partnership at her firm if she can convince Dax to work there, but her firm also has a rule against relationships at work. Plus, how will Dax react when he finds out about the partnership agreement Kailyn has with her boss? Then there's still the custody battle with Linda.

Initially, I really enjoyed this and thought it might be a keeper. The title's a bit misleading, because the book doesn't actually focus much on how they met (which is good, because Kailyn's fangirling was embarrassing). This has a bit of "famous actor + ordinary person" romance appeal, although Dax was a child actor and is now a lawyer, and I thought that the story would spend a bit more time on that, but surprisingly it didn't. It was a bit weird - Kailyn was technically a huge Daxton Hughes fangirl who collected It's My Life stuff, and yet she could somehow turn that off throughout most of the book. There were absolutely no "does she really want me or is this still just her crushing on the character I played on TV?" concerns in the romance, and Dax didn't seem to mind that Kailyn collected stuff with his teenage face on them.

The first half of this was more "enemies to lovers," at least on Kailyn's part, but since it was obvious that Kailyn's issues with Dax stemmed from some kind of misunderstanding, that got old fast. Then it morphed into a "heroine must choose between professional success and her love life," which fit a bit better but still felt somewhat half-hearted since there were clearly multiple paths Kailyn could take that would allow everything to work out. The main roadblock was the "I'll make partner before I'm 30" promise she'd made to her now-deceased father.

As far as characters went, the one that appealed to me most was actually Emme, Dax's 13-year-old sister. I really felt for her, as she tried to deal with her parents' sudden death, puberty, and the strain of the custody battle. Her obvious efforts to play matchmaker with Kailyn and Dax felt a bit forced but were still fun. I hate to say this, but I thought Kailyn's scenes with Emme, becoming friends with her and getting to know her, were generally better and more enjoyable than a lot of the Kailyn and Dax scenes. I really wish Kailyn had gotten over her "Dax betrayed me in law school" misunderstanding faster. The more it came up, the pettier it felt.

Overall, I really liked Dax. He was committed to doing well by his little sister but also still processing his own grief and trying to deal with the sudden shift in his priorities. Not that there was another option I preferred, but Kailyn didn't feel like quite the right heroine for him, I guess. 

Although in the end this was only so-so for me, there were enough things I liked about it for me to want to try more of the author's stuff. I definitely plan on stopping by her table and buying another book when my mom and I go to Book Bonanza 2022.