Overall Grade: A+
“Books are the mirrors of our soul.” – Virginia Woolf
“That she was indeed a hornet, not a butterfly. That the plain of her heart stretched vast enough to love two men so completely, love her children so purely, love her mother and her friends and the world around her with such a quiet fervor … because first, she loved herself.” – Kennedy Ryan
Rarely do I get personal in my book reviews. I’ve inserted my personal experience into the number of reviews I could count on one hand. Quite frankly, that seems sad. As the quote above from Virginia Woolf suggests, books are a reflection of ourselves. They help us understand life and love and longing, and it seems a shame that we don’t show authors in our reviews where we found ourselves in their book babies. If I were an author, I’d love to hear readers’ stories of the intersection of personal experience and my written word.
Kennedy Ryan’s This Could Be Us is impassioned, intelligent, and impeccable. Her style and syntax are cinematic and breathtaking. Her words grab you by the wrist and pull you into her story, and they hold your hand as you endure and experience her story.
I’d love to tell you how her focus on enduring female friendships in this book is the soft throw around your shoulders on a stormy day. I’d love to highlight the insight offered about the spectrum of neurodivergent characters, a spectrum so wide and vast that it makes it difficult for people to get the proper care and help. She volleys us between Aaron and Adam and Judah to illustrate the spectrum of autism, but that’s Kennedy’s story…and it’s also a bit of my own. Unfortunately, I’m not articulate enough to explain my connection to it.
I’d also love to tell you how the complications of Soledad and Judah’s journey surgically fillet your soul and create a leaner, better understanding of the power of love. The distinct understanding that one’s love affair shouldn’t compare to anyone else’s is a powerful notion. Lastly, I’d love to explain how Kennedy leans into the colonial idea of Republican Motherhood as she draws Soledad’s power in the domestic sphere. This notion ran rampant through my mind as Soledad became more influential in the domestic arts, reminding us of the impact women have made for centuries even when they were stripped of their power.
Where my mind took me for this review is in my want to be a” hornet, not a butterfly.” Here is where This Could Be Us feels like a “mirror” of my soul, where I felt empowered and changed. For the past two years, I’ve been on a journey of self-discovery and change. I learned late into my marriage that my husband lands somewhere on the autism spectrum, and he lacks the self-awareness or interest in loving me as I need to be loved. I had created a very careful existence, one that leaned heavily into peace-making for myself and my son, and it left me feeling lost and alone when my son left home to go to college. Over the past two years, I’ve been working towards becoming the “hornet” that Soledad’s mother, Catelaya, writes about so beautifully in her journal. And it hasn’t been easy. And it hasn’t been perfect, but I am learning to love myself little by little. To embrace all that I am. Opening the pages of Ryan’s inviolable book felt inspired. Kennedy Ryan’s capacity to capture the human experience, manifesting it onto the fullness of the page, is why I will read her stories until the end of my time. Her books are the mirrors to our souls, to my soul, and I feel seen and changed by them. I feel challenged and disarmed by them. I feel empowered by them.
Kennedy Ryan is an apt ambassador for romancelandia, and her books, ones like This Could Be Us, should be celebrated and held as the ultimate representation of all that is good in this genre.
In love and romance,
Professor A
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Professor Romance 