Overall Grade: 4.5 ⭐️
Tropes: rom-com; insta-attraction; second chance romance
I’m fairly certain this review will be a word salad of incomprehensibility as I try to bring my thoughts to the page. Jewel E. Ann’s Right Guy, Wrong Word has acted as a conduit to so many thoughts that trying to find the words to express them in any meaningful way feels overwhelming. So let me start where it feels necessary to begin.
I read a few early reviews of Right Guy, Wrong Word, and there was a common thread between a few of them regarding, Anna, Jewel’s heroine. Several of them spoke of their annoyance with her, especially at the beginning. And I see their point, but…BUT they missed it. Anna is seemingly annoying because she becomes frustrated with Eric’s perception of her favorite book. She feels strongly about this book, and Eric’s response feels flippant. And it’s not really about the book anyways (I mean, it kind of is, but it isn’t). The first quarter of Jewel’s book is about being “seen”. If Eric can’t like the one thing that Anna loves, how can he fully accept the depths of her spirit? It’s one of the things that makes me cry in the world: the need to feel seen and understood. Where Anna might be read as frivolous in her responses to Eric’s words, the depth of that frivolity is the want to be truly understood and accepted. So it’s important that readers don’t get caught up in Anna…it’s not about the book; it’s about acceptance.
As the book progresses, the love affair has twists and turns to whet your romance thirst. Jewel is always deft in her balance of spice and seriousness, and it’s all here. She calls this a rom-com. And it is, but it also has a depth to it that had my brain pinging with thoughts. Eric and Anna have an easy banter that develops their chemistry. My one struggle with Anna and Eric’s story was their “why” at the beginning. Eric was immediately enamored with her at a level that didn’t feel commensurate with the progression of their story. I believe this might have also coincided with his later POV entry into the story. However, Jewel eventually remedies my curiosity about this insta-attraction when she develops a depth of feeling between the two over the latter portion of the story.
But here’s the thing I really want to get to with regards to Right Guy, Wrong Word…I believe this story is really about storytelling. I’m probably, absolutely going out on a ledge with this review to say that I feel Jewel exposes herself as a storyteller in this book. There is a metastory in this book: this is a book about the book. There is something in this about romance, about how the reality of the real world never really owns up to the fantasy of the romantic world and the disappointment in that lack of perfect love. There is a HUGE message about the perfect love of romance versus the imperfect love which makes us the most human and the most loveable. And the romance feels like a response to the way that readers respond to books. Is it possible that Eric’s response to Anna’s favorite book is Jewel’s examination of how people view her books or her peers’ books? She also highlights the futility of words to truly capture one’s feelings. I told you “word salad of incomprehensibility” with a side of a Master’s degree in English which leads me to overthink just about everything I read.
Jewel E Ann’s Right Guy, Wrong Word is funny and witty and sad and compelling. It woke up my brain from a summer slumber, and it allowed me to escape from reality for a day. It sparked my thinking about AI and writing and the soul that will surely be missing from it because this book is an apt reminder of a person’s capacity to make us feel feelings and think thoughts. Her story highlights the reality that we are all perfect in our imperfections, and stories offer us that reminder.
In love and romance,
Professor A
Professor Romance 