This story follows Izzy, who is a bookish librarian who finds herself single over thirty, and gets signed up for a dating site by her matchmaking cousin.
Unfortunately, the man she begins to correspond with is basically her dream guy, which means that in order to find her happily ever after, Izzy just might have to step outside her comfort zone and figure out just who Izzy is… authentically.
This story is told in epistolary format for the first portion of the story, but also includes some in regular narrative, so a little bit of something for everyone.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5 stars)
I love a good epistolary novel. A good epistolary rom-com, though? I’m pretty much guaranteed a great time. I believe this was my first Pepper Basham book, and this is probably my fourth time reading it, because… it’s amazing. I would seriously recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed the rom-com genre. And maybe even if you don’t. Because, you know… it’s amazing!
(Do I sound like a broken record? Yeah, you don’t have to answer that. I am already aware.)
The characters in this book completely stole my heart. Brodie and Izzy… they deserve all the heart eye emojis, for the record. But, more about that in my emoji review at the bottom of this post. I’ll try to stick to actual coherent English words, although the fangirl in me struggles to sound intelligible when talking about this story.
Authentically, Izzy is a rare mix of some of the things I love most when it comes to books. It is unapologetically cute, sweet, bookish, and humorous. The unique writing style and formatting puts it apart from any book I’d ever read. Not only did it captivate me with each page, but I felt like I was a part of the story, receiving the letters as the characters did.
As far as content goes, we do deal a bit with Izzy’s grief over her parents’ death far prior to the book. We also do discuss a lot of classics and popular books, so there are some spoilers for those sprinkled throughout. The romance is (in my opinion) clean and sweet. I would recommend this book for any adult readers and some teen readers. However, I do not post full content reviews for the books I read– I simply briefly summarize what I remember. (If you’d like to learn more about my feelings and tips for ascertaining content in books, please feel free to click here.)
This is the first book in a trilogy, and although this is my favorite, I highly recommend reading all three books. The second follows Izzy’s cousin Penelope, and the third follows her cousin, Luke. Needless to say, they’re hilarious and a great time. I smirk just thinking about them.
Honestly, I could talk about this book all day, and I don’t think I would accomplish saying anything that would coherently put together how I feel about this story. On the contrary, I think I would just be embarrassed at my own writing, so, I will stop here. I hope that my rambling has helped you see how much I truly adore this story. I think I will keep re-reading this story, and I don’t think it will ever get old.
EMOJI REVIEW– COMPLETE WITH TRANSLATION!:
📚📖📕 (books, books, and more books) + 📝💻💌 (letters and emails) + ❤️❤️❤️ (sweet romance) + 🤣😆😂 (laugh out loud humor) + ✝️⛪️🔔 (faith content) = 😍😍😍 (perhaps my all-time favorite Christian fiction book!)
Thank you all for reading this review. I’d love to hear if you’ve read this book, and if so, what you thought of it. What’s your favorite rom-com book? I’d love to talk about it in the comments.
Happy reading, dear friends!
keira anne with an e 
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