This one didn't grab me much.

Greta is a magazine editor with no love life to speak of. Her boss (yuk) sets her up with a dating agency. It’s obvious from the start who she’s going to end up with.

Spoiler

It’s in the tagline on the cover.

So there’s no “who will she pick excitement” and the rest of the story isn’t very engaging. Greta’s bad dates are not hilarious, and the patheticness of the men is told not shown.

I don’t care about Poppy much. She’s an all knowing matron, which may have worked as a side character, but she’s a main character - a big part of the narrative is her POV. Main characters need to be rounded, Poppy’s too flat. Story would have worked better if it had been only Greta’s POV.

That said, Greta’s mum is a chicklit cliché, dropping hints that Greta must hurry to find a man and start a family. Obviously, the mum has forgotten she had a baby at age 48, so Greta’s still got a good ten years to find someone and doesn’t need her mum trying to set her up with a man that’s old enough to be her dad. At least I don’t need that. When the mum has grown up in the sixties and seventies (of last century) or later, I want them to accept and respect their daughter's independence, because that's how they raised them. And if the mum does try to set the daughter up with someone, that conversation should be met with a firm “butt out” or an update on divorce statistics (or in this case the question: “is he looking for a care-giver?”)

Greta goes for the classic made up boyfriend. Which could have been a hilarious set-up for the third act break-up. Or perhaps that’s just wishful thinking on my part, as the actual third act break-up (and the consequentual make up) were dull.

Two stars, because it should not take more than two days to read a feelgood (let alone more than two weeks).

I read an ARC through NetGalley.