About the Book:
They broke each other’s hearts. Now they’re working side by side to fix everyone else’s.
Poppy isn’t looking for love – she’s looking for a way to get her mum on the client list of Eternally Yours, the most exclusive matchmaking agency in town. So when she lands a summer job there, she’s ready to fake her passion for romance and keep her head down.
Except her ex-boyfriend Salman is also working there. And he somehow still knows exactly how to make her laugh when she’s trying to hate him.
As they’re forced to plan dates for other people, Poppy and Salman find themselves revisiting their own history – and maybe rewriting it. But will they be able to find their way back to each other for good?
Find on Goodreads. Find on Bookshop.org UK (affiliate link).
About the Author:
Anika Hussain was born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden, and currently lives and writes in Bristol, Somerset. She is a graduate of the Bath Spa MAWYP. Not having seen herself in the books she read as a teenager, she writes YA novels with South Asian characters at the heart of the story. She is the YA Book Prize shortlisted author of This Is How You Fall in Love and Heartbreaker. In her free time, she rewatches Love Island, listens to too many true crime podcasts and sings pop-punk songs loudly around her apartment.
Reinventing and repackaging classic romcoms for Gen-Z:
I would be lying if I didn’t say that I think the world would be a truly miserable place if it weren’t for the existence of rom coms. When I was growing up, every rom com that came out had my full and utter attention. I used to drag my family to the cinema where I could just spend two hours in the dark and lose myself in a storyline that made me feel hope that one day I too would find my perfect person. But at some point or another rom-coms started getting less and less attention. They went straight to streaming rather than getting a theatrical released. They were being labelled as silly formulaic stories with nothing to them except a beautiful cast. To say I was saddened by this would be an understatement. I was devastated.
However, that might have been for the best because now we are seeing a resurgence of them, and they are back with a vengeance and addressing the issues that may have caused its decline in the first place—all thanks to Gen Z.
It’s no secret that Gen Z want substance in everything they consume and that includes the stories they read and watch. Gen Z no longer yearn for the protagonist who must choose between her career or love — she can have both. They don’t want a simple bad boy without any depth, they want him with emotional intelligence and an arc that explains his behaviour. If there is a makeover montage it comes with social commentary on identity rather than conformity. But most of all, where our heroines from the noughties bent over backwards to turn themselves into someone they weren’t, Gen Z are asking the bigger question: is the relationship worth losing yourself over?
They’re not necessarily reinventions either — it’s simply rebranding. Where classic 00’s rom coms were seen as vapid and shallow, today they are filled with boundaries, emotionally fraught conversations, and diversity. For Gen Z, the beloved formula no longer worked but not because it was inherently flawed but more because it was missing something. Gen Z saw that love was far more complicated and through a new lens they showcased just that.
And this isn’t the younger generation rejecting the genre. Far from it! Instead, they are editing it. They’re not advocating for the removal of the fantasy – of finding your person – but rather they are delving into the structure of the rom-com and making it sharper with writing that doesn’t feel out of touch, with leads that reflect their personalities, and heroines who aren’t willing to compromise themselves for the sake of someone else.
It’s exactly that which I try to incorporate into my own rom coms. I write South Asian leads because growing up I never saw myself represented in any love stories unless it was as a comedic side character and it’s also why my protagonists are always messy and make so many mistakes — I want them to be human. I want readers to feel comforted by my stories, yes, but I also want them to be challenged by them. I want them to question their own notions of love and how they would react when put in these difficult situations. I want them to know that they can have their love story but that it’s may not be as neatly tied up as rom coms from decades ago make them out to be.
So, while I thought that rom coms were being phased out, I was wholly wrong. The appetite for a love story with a charming lead, killer outfits, and a soundtrack to die for never left. It just needed an update.
Thank you!
#UKYASpotlight 
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