My review of romance book The Dating Plan by Sara Desai

 

The Dating Plan by Sara Desai is a charming romance set in a full world.  Both love interests, Daisy and Liam, have more than one friend and more than one relative, a rarity in contemporary romance.  Although some of the side characters are a bit stock (like an aunt whose only characteristic is that she makes wacky, terrible food), many of them are almost as developed as Daisy and Liam.

The plot fits into the standard trope of fake fiancees to hot sex to true love.  Not much to say about that.  

Because I'm me, I'm going to nitpick.

Daisy reminded me of Stella from Helen Hoang's The Kiss Quotient.   They are both brilliant, introverted computer engineers with underdeveloped personal lives.  Stella is on the autism spectrum, and although Desai never says so expressly Daisy seems to be as well. It doesn't really matter, of course.  

What does matter is:  Why does Daisy's boss take her, a back office programmer, to pitch meetings to get funding for the company?   What is this thing about Daisy teaching a dance class, which is mentioned sometimes but never goes anywhere?  Why is Daisy's mother so awful? 

As for Liam -- his story is that he comes from a dysfunctional family with whom he has little contact.  We know this because he says this over and over again -- to members of the family with whom he claims he has little contact.  Like his cousin he sees constantly and is good friends with because the cousin owns the bar Liam goes to all the time.  Or his brother, the father of the nephew Liam adores and whose life he is a big part of. 

Liam's father was abusive.  This is just something that hangs in the story.  Liam was very close to his grandfather before he died, and it comes up a few times that the grandfather preferred Liam over Liam's father.  But the abuse piece is never explained.  Adults generally don't just become fully formed wife and child abusers.  They learned it somewhere, typically in their own families when they were growing up.  Did Liam's grandfather abuse Liam's father?  There's no hint of that anywhere, or of abuse anywhere else in Liam's extended family.

My (completely uninformed) sense is that a realistically estranged, dysfunctional family is so outside of Desai's experience that she simply cannot imagine what it's like.  That leaves some holes in the plot of The Dating Plan, but it's still a good read.