Do You Take This Man by Denise Williams

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Title: Do You Take This Man
Author: Denise Williams
Published by: Berkley
Release Date: September 6, 2022
Format: eARC
Pages: 350
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2023 COYER Chapter 2, Lenoreo's 2023 Diversity Reading Challenge, Lenoreo's 2023 Netgalley and Edelweiss Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks
My rating:

Blurb:

After butting heads, an event planner and a wedding officiant begin an enemies with benefits arrangement as wedding bells chime around them in the newest rom-com from acclaimed author Denise Williams.

Divorce attorney RJ would never describe herself as romantic. But when she ends up officiating an unplanned wedding for a newly engaged couple in a park, her life is turned upside down. The video of the ceremony goes viral, and she finds herself in the unlikely position of being a sought-after local wedding officiant. Spending her free time overseeing “I dos” isn’t her most strategic career move, but she enjoys it, except for the type A dude-bro wedding planner she’s forced to work with.

Former pro-football event manager Lear is a people person, but after his longtime girlfriend betrayed him, he isn’t looking for love. He knows how to execute events and likes being in control, so working with an opinionated and inflexible officiant who can’t stand him is not high on his list. He’s never had trouble winning people over, but RJ seems immune to his charms.

Surrounded by love at every turn, their physical attraction pulls them together despite their best efforts to stay an arm’s length apart. Lear refuses to get hurt again. RJ refuses to let herself be vulnerable to anyone. But when it comes to happily ever after, their clients might not be the only ones saying “I do.”

My Review:

I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

4 stars — I liked this one more than I was expecting to, especially after having read a few of the lower reviews and assuming I would feel similarly…but maybe because I lowered my expectations, it reverse psychology’d me?  I don’t know, but I’ll take it.

Honestly, breaking this book down, I really shouldn’t have liked it.  Lear starts off as a bit of a jerk, though we do immediately get the sense that he is in the midst of heartbreak and anger, and trying to act opposite of his normal self.  And then we have RJ, whom I have NOTHING in common with and kind of makes me uncomfortable at times with her cold demeanor.  To top it all off, it’s enemies to lovers (essentially), which we all know I struggle with.

But I think where this one ended up working despite my expectations is that BOTH Lear and RJ have an equal amount of flaws, and BOTH have a LOT of growth ahead of them in this story.  And while I’m not a personal fan of the weird meanness sexual tension thingie that pervades enemies to lovers, for some reason it worked better in this one.  Maybe because you could see the moments where it was wonderful banter, and you could see the moments where they hit their marks and they regretted it, but then those walls would come up.  Like, I could honestly see them meeting each other equally on the banter playing field, so it wasn’t necessarily one more than the other.

I saw a quote from an author for this book that labeled the love as “hard-earned”, and that is an understatement.  It was a hard, sometimes frustrating road to watch these two continually resort to their defense mechanisms whenever they made a step forward…but those steps forward were really delightful.  They were like little sweet amuse-bouches sprinkled through the story.

I have a feeling if I hadn’t lowered my expectations, this one would have been a 3 or 3.5 stars.  But somehow knowing what I was getting into gave me more patience.  *shrugs*  Don’t question it Lenore, just be thankful.