Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? Things here are all still in “wait” mode. Luckily, it’s the last Wednesday of the month, so you know what that means. Book review time! For August, I decided to go with a straight up romance. No fantasy. No magic. No monsters. Just two people falling in love. Which is weird for me, but once in a while weird things are interesting. Experiments in Offline Dating by Kat Mackenzie was released yesterday (August 25th) by Avon Books. As usual, I must thank them and NetGalley for access to an ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. Let’s do the thing!

Experiments in Offline Dating follows Maya, the cohost of a podcast where she goes on ridiculously bad dates (usually due to her own awkwardness) and tries to figure out how love works using the data she collects. She’s used everything from the apps to being set up on blind dates by random people. The fact that she’s 38 and has never been in love makes the spinster life seem inevitable. For the new season of the podcast, Maya decides to go offline and sign up for help from a real life Irish matchmaker. Can he help her find love? She doubts it, but at least she gets to explore Ireland between the absurd dates!

Plot and pacing: cute and off. The plot is cute. It’s your usual enemies-to-lovers fare. The matchmaker obviously has ulterior motives when he promises Maya a 3-week cross-country trip and immediately pawns her off on his grumpy son who she has already embarrassed herself with. It goes about how you’d expect. The only real problem with the plot is the banter. It enters bitchy territory a lot. It’s not cute or funny. It’s just rude as hell and I’m surprised no one gets punched in the face for the things they say. But that’s just me. The pacing, on the other hand, is not a me thing. It starts out super fast paced, then just kind of dies to a crawl about halfway through. There are two points around the 75% mark that are supposed to be pivotal scenes, but they both get glanced over. And the ending felt like cheating, but a lot of books pull that family emergency crap to avoid making the characters actually deal with things in a sane manner.

Characters: mostly good. I liked Maya and Tadhg a lot. I did want a little more background on Tadhg, but he fleshed out enough to be enjoyable. Simone could have used more page time. The only character I didn’t care for was Jackie. He’s supposed to be mischievous and adorable, but if you really think about what he does, he’s a manipulative dick. And dangerous. Luring people to a sea cave so they get trapped during high tide? That’s how people die. Giving out a woman’s phone number without permission? Ick at best. Setting the woman up with some “handsy” dude when you know she doesn’t like to be touched and doesn’t really know how to tell a dude to fucking stop if he wants to keep his fingers? Shame on you. But if you don’t think about it too much, Jackie’s okay too. And of course, Finn (the dog) is my favorite.

Writing: not bad. It makes for a smooth read despite the pacing issues. There was nothing bad about it. Nothing great either. It was unobtrusive, which I like. It didn’t get in the way of the story.

Ultimately, I enjoyed Experiments in Offline Dating for what it was, despite my complaints. It was basically Nobody Wants This (it’s a show on Netflix with a similar premise), but without the religious aspect. So, it’s cute and I’ll probably forget all about it by next week.

Overall, I gave it 4 out of 5 stars. Actually, 3.5. If you enjoy romances with enemies-to-lovers and partially sunshine/grumpy tropes, check it out.