The Rom-Commers
A Novel
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4.5 • 241 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
She’s rewriting his love story. But can she rewrite her own?
Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies—good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates—The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!—it’s a break too big to pass up.
Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone—much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.” Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesn’t even care about the script—it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme.
But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matter—even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules—and comes true?
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
There’s love and laughs bouncing around at every angle in Katherine Center’s funny, bighearted novel. Rom-com-obsessed struggling screenwriter Emma gets a once-in-a-lifetime chance to spend six weeks in L.A. working with her idol, big-time action-film writer Charlie Yates. Charlie couldn’t care less about love stories, fictional or real, and the romantic comedy gig he’s taken just for the cash fits him like a six-fingered glove. At first, Emma finds herself and her ideas for the script are about as welcome as a migraine attack. But when she starts giving Charlie a crash course in the mechanics of romance, the real thing just might flare up. Center obviously shares Emma’s deep devotion to the rom-com, and the sparklingly barbed banter between Emma and Charlie would make Hepburn and Tracy proud. But this is no fluff fest—both characters’ backstories have some heavy baggage, giving the romantic fizz just the right contrast. Get ready to fall in love with love and have a giggle fit along the way.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Center (The Bright Side of Disaster) botches a clever premise about an aspiring writer too trapped by family obligations to have a career and an established writer too trapped by his career to have a family. Emma Wheeler put her Hollywood dreams on hold to be a full-time caretaker to her father, but when her manager, whom she shares with "screenwriter's screenwriter" Charlie Yates, suggests Emma become Charlie's live-in ghostwriter to fix his appalling rom-com script, Emma gets a second chance at the career she always wanted. Unfortunately, Center has Emma rhapsodically explain rom-com tropes but doesn't deploy them effectively herself. The meet-cute is more of a meet-ugly, with Charlie calling Emma an "unproduced, underachieving, failed nobody writer off the internet." This would be fine if Charlie underwent the necessary character arc to become a worthy hero, but instead he's shoved through the standard beats of a romance novel before he's developed at all, making scenes like the one in which he carries a fainting Emma bridal-style into his home feel forced, rushed, and out of character. It doesn't help that Emma is incapable of taking no for an answer, especially when it comes to physical intimacy and Charlie's reasonable concerns about consent. Additionally, Emma's boundary-smashing, superfan approach to everyone she meets in L.A. veers from rom-com heroine awkwardness into cringeworthy nonprofessionalism that makes it tough to root for her. Readers will be better served elsewhere.
Customer Reviews
Treat yourself to this book
I had almost given up on rom coms with their silly, contrived plots and cringeworthy gratuitous sex scenes but hope springs eternal, as they say. This book teaches us how to be our best selves and, as cliche as it sounds, be grateful.
Winner winner winner
This one deserves a permanent spot on the shelves, for regular re-reads. Katherine Center is my new favorite. She writes witty, addicting dialogue. Her romance literally gives my heart that squeeze as if I’m experiencing it first hand - every. single. time. And I loooove it. How is she so good at this? Never stop writing, Katherine. Buy all her books.
Disappointing
Such a huge fan of Center and I was so incredibly disappointed. Hoping this is a one off - save your money and hope for the best next time. If you haven’t read The Bodyguard choose that instead.