Modern romance If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy is set in that spot between The Bachelor and UnReal where all you can do is shake your head and wonder if it can get any dumber. Which is not to say I didn't like the book. I did! It was my first romance after a long spell of nonfiction and serious (meaning, not romance, which of course can be serious) fiction, and my Youtube and TV watching dropped by about 90 percent while I was reading this.
Heroine Cindy agrees to be a contestant on The Bachelor (it's not called that in the book but that's what is so that's what I'm calling it) because she hopes the publicity will help her land a job designing shoes. But, she falls in love for realz! Yay!
That's the plot in a nutshell. Cindy has an actual backstory that Murphy sorta kinda tries to analogize to Cinderella but never really gets there. Cindy is an orphan who lived with her stepmother and two stepsisters after her father died. Her stepsisters are popular influencers. But they're nice! And they love Cindy and Cindy loves them! Same with her stepmother!
Cindy's story is best when it addresses the grief she has to learn to deal with following the death of her mother when she was young and her father more recently. I would have liked for the book to dig in more deeply to what it takes to be a shoe designer, but it only touched on that. I would have loved for the book to dig in more deeply to the back story of Cindy first developing her love of shoes when she was young and saw the Bachelor contestants wearing gorgeous shoes. But after a flashback early in the book that is never mentioned again.
So, Cindy is flying from New York to California and she meets a hot guy. She gets home and is recruited to be on The Bachelor. Need I say more? Plot plot plot the end.
This would have been perfectly decent. Unfortunately every time the book deviated from the most basic story it got really dumb. Did I mention that Cindy's stepmother is the producer of The Bachelor? And her stepsisters are on the show with her? But nobody can say anything about that because then everyone would think they all got onto the show because of nepotism (because they did)? Cindy's stepmother is given a fake name for interviews. But Cindy mentions in an interview that her stepmother is the mother of triplets. And somehow despite all the internet sleuthing that goes on for contestants, nobody realizes that Cindy's stepmother of triplets is the same stepmother of triplets who produces The Bachelor. (And, yes, the stepmother, who is the single mother of five children, of whom three are four years old, and the stepmother of one child, all six of whom live with her, has a high-powered career and does not seem in any way overwhelmed by anything.)
The shenanigans when Cindy is on the show is like fourth-season UnReal levels of stupid. Hero Henry swipes two walkie-talkies from the crew and gives one to Cindy so they can talk privately. Cindy hides hers in her bra while wearing tight clothes, and talks to him from dorm-like bathrooms she shares with the other contestants, and from open air balconies. Like, sure, no one would hear her. Cindy and Henry sneak out of their hotel rooms and play hooky together in Manhattan, and even though they are all over the internet (because of course in this book The Bachelor is aired as it is happening) nobody notices them. Cindy breaks her contract and leaves the show early, and then Henry does, with no repercussions.
I understand the problem. On shows like The Bachelor there's really no opportunity for people to get to know each other, so how could they fall in love? But: this is a novel! You can make any show you want! You can create a reality dating show where the contestants actually do get to know each other! Fiction, baby!
