Spoilers Ahead


Do you ever just spend 10 years wallowing over the fact your parents split up for 6 months when you were young? Yeah, me neither….


So, I finally got around to reading We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This. And it was…pretty bad. Today, Tonight, Tomorrow is one of my favorite contemporaries of all time, so when I saw this book was coming out (back in like 2021 or something), I was beyond excited. And then I waited months to read it. I’ve finally picked it up, and now, I’m extremely disappointed.


I think my main problems with this book were our main character, and just how overall fucking boring this was. Quinn is one of the most infuriating characters I’ve ever read about. She makes things so fucking hard for herself, and it’s so bad that’s it’s barely readable. She had a few relatable moments with her OCD, but everything else she did was so nonsensical and idiotic. Quinn defined every life choice and decision she made on her parents separating for 6 months when she was 8. She explains how traumatizing this was for her, but she uses it as an excuse to be a shitty person.


Time and time again, Quinn hurts the people in her life. She steps all over them, and makes them out to be the bad guy when she fucks up. And then she blamed it on her childhood trauma. Which is one of the most annoying character motivations to read about. It’s never done well, and it just makes a character look like an asshole rather a person with real flaws. And Quinn was an asshole, for the entirety of this book. She waits until the last second to tell her parents she doesn’t want to work for the family business and that she doesn’t want to go to college for it (which they already paid for), she fucks with her love interests feelings for the entirety of the book, and she whines that people don’t “see her”. Yeah, Quinn, they don’t see you because you don’t talk about anything, and you keep everything bottled up till the last second.


Also this was one of the most boring romance books I’ve ever read. For being a romance, there was so little romance and so many scenes with over-explanation, and little plot. The first 100 pages of this book (with about 320 for context) was just absolutely nothing besides paper. The only thing that really happens is Quinn complaining, and talking about her “failed relationships”. I think Quinn and Tarek (the love interest) have one conversation for about a hundred pages, and three before they start hardcore making out. These two have “past history”, but it wasn’t believable at all. We get two flashback scenes max about their past friendship. If anything it felt very instalovely.


And not only that, but Quinn spends the entire book with the conflict between her parents, what she wants to do after high school, and family issues. And it gets resolved in 25 pages max. The third act breakup happens within 20 to 25 pages of the resolution. It was just oddly paced, and it didn’t work for the type of conflict Solomon was trying to push the entire story.


I think We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This would have worked a lot better if there was more character interaction between Quinn and Tarek, and less page time spent on mindless descriptions and scenes. There were so many chapters I’d consider “filler” in here, where we could have gotten more chemistry between Quinn and Tarek. I think Quinn’s main conflict would have been more interesting, if she wasn’t so infuriating to read. Some of her conflicts were even a little relatable at times, but every time I thought that, she just continued to be an asshole again. I think what Solomon was trying to achieve with Quinn’s character, was quirky and relatable, with the “sad indie girl music”, her “quirky” style, and the overuse of Chris Evans references. But she just ended up making Quinn shallow, abrasive, and super childish (which was exactly what Solomon was steering away from).


I didn’t hate this story. There were some nice elements like OCD rep (which was highly relatable), the overall aesthetic with the wedding planning, and that fucking AMAZING 4 page Rowan and Neil cameo. But, I didn’t really like it either. There were so many things that made me annoyed, and also the Muslim rep that wasn’t really representation, it was just added…because? I’m not Muslim so I’m not going to speak to closely on this, but even to me it felt weird to add Muslim rep, only for the love interest to not actually practice? But anyway, if you want a better wedding planning story with a more fleshed out romance, and a decent MC, read Maybe This Time by Kasie West.


2 stars


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There aren't any words to describe how excited I am for this. Today Tonight Tomorrow was one of the best contemporaries I read in 2020, and this sounds so amazing. The cover is also just immaculate