Review: The Proposal by Jasmine Guillroy
I picked up this book because I had heard wonderful things about Jasmine Guillory on the internet (one of my real-life friends had read this book and was not a fan, maybe that should have been my heads up) and was excited to read her books!
This book follows Nik, a Black female freelance writer, and Carlos, a Latino doctor (not a baseball player which surprised me because the cover gave me sports romance vibes) who meet when Nik is proposed to by her casual boyfriend at a baseball game on the jumbotron. She says no and is being awkwardly swarmed by cameras when Carlos and his sister decide to go save her from this fate and offer her a ride home. From here, the pair become friends, and this leads to a casual romantic situation.
The beginning of this book is bananas, I'm not entirely sure if I loved the explanation we eventually got for this banana's beginning, but I am very willing to go along with a wild premise and just have fun with the book. But, when you don't necessarily like the rest of the book, a banana's beginning can start to seem like an underutilized premise.
My most important issue with this book is that it is, in some ways, a book about domestic violence and abusive relationships. I was just frustrated that so much of the 'solution' segment of this book was focused on personal responsibility. The gym they get lessons in is presented as a community fighting these issues, but it mostly seemed like a way for Nik to end up interviewing a woman about her past abuse. I wanted to see more of this gym functioning as a community. The emotional abuse in Nik's past felt underexplored to me; I felt like at the end of the book, she was suddenly able to trust when she was just coming to terms with the fact that she was still being affected by her long-ago boyfriend.
Another thematic issue I had was I didn't like the gender dynamics at play in this book. Or, more accurately, I thought the dissonance between what I was interpreting on-page and what I was being told the characters thought were happening was huge. After first meeting Carlos, his sister, Nik, and her two friends all go to a bar; they have a very informational conversation about what happened, later in the book, Carlos colors this conversation as angry. Carlos loves taking care of those around him in a very paternal way; Nik says she hates this but actively encourages the behavior when she notices he likes it when she lets him. When Carlos is angry with Nik, his emotional outburst is never fully addressed, and Nik carries the weight of being the one who needs to apologize. This last point seems expressly antithetical to the domestic abuse plotline. I also just find it annoying when men trash 'lady food' like salad and wine. And of course, Nik is so very impressive because she eats a lot of food, not like those other girls who like different food?
A thing I personally don't like is the friend group that says things along the lines of "if you hurt her, I'll kill you." I just find it childish and uncomfortably dramatic; we had this dynamic throughout the book. Other minor issues I had were: the idea that tacos were somehow a niche food in areas with large Latine populations, the idea that risotto is hard to cook (it is very time-consuming but not like HARD), and how many times the author said nipples. I also found it bizarre that after Nik punches someone in the face towards the end of the book, she essentially gets a "and then they all clapped" reaction, ala the tongue and cheek exaggerated Tumblr posts of the 2010s.
This does sound like I totally hated this book; I didn't; I just had my positives a bit outweighed. I did like that Nik had a supportive female friend group. I liked that the book was focused on a varied group of people, mostly people of color, and that the women's gym made it explicit that they welcomed trans women.
Back to the friend group, I would have read and loved a book about the three of them. I wanted so much more from their characters, Courtney is much more developed than Dana is, but I mostly liked their interactions. There were lots of instances throughout this book where I could tell I was meant to find something funny, but I didn't, but with this trio, I did giggle a bit!
This book wasn't for me, which is fine. I am super glad this book has found and continues to find people who love it. I am probably going to try at least one more book by Guillory; I was so excited to love her work I am hoping this was a fluke for me.
I gave this book 2 stars.
