Let's Pretend This Will Work: one woman's search for happiness turns her life upside down

Let’s Pretend This Will Work by Maddie Dawson is one woman’s search for happiness which turns her life upside down. Mimi Perkins is a thirtysomething English teacher and single. She longs for love, so when Ren Yardley, the handsome, divorced drama teacher, shows interest, Mimi hopes this is finally the good news her psychic told her about. Ren soon proposes and she accepts. Soon after, Ren gets devastating news that his ex wife was in a horrible accident and he heads back to New Haven in order to take care of her and their two daughters. When Mimi suddenly loses her job and her apartment in one day, Ren invites her to come to New Haven to be close to him. There she finds a job at a local daycare and settles in. But as time goes by, Mimi begins to see that Ren and his family are slowly reuniting and now she needs to figure out what she wants to fight for and what she needs to let go. 

I was expecting a fun, quirky rom-com as a woman discovers what she really needs in life. However, this story was not it. From the very beginning, Mimi was annoyingly naive. When Ren proposes, Mimi hesitates and yet still says yes because her psychic said good things were going to happen. Ren was a walking red flag but he was just “so charming” that it is overlooked. When Mimi gets to New Haven, the cringiness and eye rolling events continue. The scenes in the daycare were just weird and the descriptions of the children were odd. I kept thinking children don’t normally act like this or say these things. Overall, I did not care for Mimi. I waited for her to realize her worth and stop chasing a guy who did not value her. I definitely did not like Ren. He was a pushy jerk from the very beginning. This story was not fun. It was definitely quirky with no rom com in sight. I do not recommend Let’s Pretend This Will Work. 

Let’s Pretend This Will Work is available in paperback, eBook and audiobook