Book No. 85 of 2020
(I’m moving through feel-good books very quickly, which is somewhat alarming as I don’t know a ton of books in this genre and I may run out before the election dust is settled.)
The premise of Surprise Me is, imho, a red herring. “Married couple creates little surprises to spice up their marriage” is the first 25-30% of the book and it gets tiresome and overly cringey, like a bad romantic comedy you watch on a plane. As the story progresses though, Kinsella pulls at a bunch of the threads on the surface and it somehow becomes a whole different kind of story—one that deals with deeper, darker issues (and is, frankly, 10000% more compelling). Dealing with themes of trust, grief, growing up, and what it means to love someone, the book reveals itself to be a heartfelt manifesto on relationships. (I also thought the climactic resolution—always a fraught affair in rom-com-type stories, wasn’t too cheesy.)
One thing I genuinely appreciated was the way the core relationship in the book was depicted—lighthearted stories about marriage are often rehashes of tired, sexist tropes, and toxic relationship dynamics masquerading as totally normal gender roles. Both the protagonist and her husband operate with mutual respect with an equality-based approach, and while Kinsella doesn’t make a huge deal out of it, I appreciate her normalizing it. (There is one point where it seems like the marriage has broken down along the usual gender-based fault lines, but that turns out to be a false flag.) I also loved all the little details of a (healthy) long-term relationship—the little signs and shared language of people who know each other so well. It’s also refreshing to read a romantic story about a long-term couple; as much as I like my “boy meets girl, etc.” narratives, the romance and growth don’t stop at the altar.
Similar Reads
The way the story reveals itself, with a “turn” that shifts the basic premise, reminded me of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble (though Fleishman is way, way darker).
This reminded me of another Kinsella book, My Not So Perfect Life.