Sweet, fun, light, funny, relatable, real, honest, cute

Circling Back to You is one of my most anticipated romances of the year, especially after I read The Donut Trap (you can read my review here!) and loved it last year. Julie Tieu is a wonderful writer of light, fun, and sweet contemporaries, and Circling Back to You is just as delightful as her debut. Circling Back to You hits the nail on the head with this office romance. It tackles challenges that workplace friendships and romances are bound to have, maintains the so many comforting romance tropes, and adds in a wonderful family dynamic for both characters which gives everyone so much depth. I found myself not only rooting for the romance, which happens quite a bit in romances but also for each character individually. An absolute delight of a book!

Quick Summary: Cadence and Matt are best friends in the office. When work sends them on a business trip to their hometown, Matt asks Cadence to pretend to be his girlfriend for a family gathering. Given the opportunity to see each other in a new setting, they both start to change their perspectives on what their friendship really is. But just as they finally start to see their relationship for what it really is, promotions and new opportunities begin to arise that would tear them apart. Matt and Cadence must work together to get through these challenges together… or not.

Circling Back to You does a wonderful job of connecting the characters’ families into the romance. Too many romances are too isolated from the rest of the world but Tieu makes Cadence and Matt’s world so relatable and well-rounded. The way that the family dynamics affect the characters and their relationships ties so perfectly into the characters’ personalities, it gives the reader a perfect opportunity to get to know the characters. No family is perfect but our families help shape who we become, so it is a joy to read about Cadence and Matt’s families.

My favorite part of Circling Back to You is how both Matt and Cadence are both working to improve their lives from the beginning. They are both looking to further their careers, which eventually presents challenges to their friendship and romance, but it made the characters so much more relatable. Both of them are at the start of their careers and they are still working on climbing but Tieu is able to illustrate beautifully how much climbing the ladder can affect our personal lives. It is relatable, difficult, and important to read characters growing through this. So many people go through this stage in their life, or maybe they are still in it, and they might feel less alone by reading characters who also struggle with how much they are willing to let work affect their personal lives.



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