(courtesy Allen & Unwin)
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a romcom worth its swoon-worthy salt is in need of a protagonist and their would be significant romantic interest who are hugely and endlessly likable (and yes, I have paraphrased the opening sentence to Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, which seems quite apropos given the genre under review).
That might seem the most obvious of all obvious statements but the truth of the matter is that for a romcom to really capture your heart – yes, dear reader, we deserve to find reading love just as much as the main characters have a right to find the love of their life – you have to like the people involved in the story.
Having read a metric note of romcoms, I can say with some authority that nothing kills a romcom faster than a protagonist who tips too far into unlikability; sure, give them some rough edges, flaws and things to be reshaped and redeemed since who of us doesn’t want to believe that love can save us as much as it enriches us, but don’t for the love of all that is Cupid-shaped, make them people who you decide fairly quickly deserve nothing better than a lonely loveless existence with their 29 cats and macrame plant holders (actually that doesn’t sound too bad, but I digress).
Match Fit, the latest romcom joy of a novel from Leesa Ronald (Special Delivery) is one of those novels that makes you love from the word go because its lovable protagonist Ruby Carpenter is an an absolute delight to know, be around and be a friend or family member to.
After so rashly asking Jake to “hang out”, Ruby had spent the next few hours agonising over what would constitute “hanging out” in Vegas. Would they sit in the lobby and talk? Would they go to an all-night diner? Would they play the pokies?
Lest you think though that makes her such a sparkly pretty clean manic pixie girl that you need sunglasses to ward off blindness caused her gleaming perfection, what makes her even more appealing is that she’s a million miles away from having her sh*t together.
She is suffering a series of major career setbacks from redundancy to AI sucking up all the really good roles she used to enjoy as a journalist and marketer, her fiancé Ollie, a grumpy, rich kid guy who Ruby isn’t entirely sure she wants to marry anyway is being thoughtless and uncaring, and she feels like she’s way behind all of her friends who are ticking all of the career, family and home ownership boxes.
She’s not unhappy and does have work thanks to her uni bestie Candice who, in-between having a great marriage, three kids and a stellar legal career (and being lovely into the bargain!), has secured her a temporary gig working for Australian Rugby (which unexpectedly includes a series of overseas marketing gigs), but when her relationship implodes and she ends up needing somewhere to live, it becomes challenging to keep seeing life as even remotely half full.
So as you can see Match Fit is wonderfully human and definitely doesn’t have it all together but good lord, she is so super likeable and you want to find all the good things and more by the end of this buoyantly alive and happy novel.
(courtesy official author site)
It becomes quite clear after a delightful meet-cute at the Sydney Opera House where the first of a rolling series of international rugby competition fixtures is being promoted sees Ruby come into deliciously flirty contact with the hunky but sweet captain of the UK rugby team Jake Lavender who turns out to be gloriously and happily grounded, decent and hooray, lovable too.
Ruby doesn’t immediately think romance; for one thing she’s barely broken up with Ollie and now is not the time to dive willfully into rebound anything, but she’s also acutely aware that her role as part of the rugby promotion machine comes with an unofficial expectation that she will not become involved with a player.
But you know her attempts to keep Jake as a charmingly caring and thoughtful friend with a smoking hot bod well and truly in the friend zone is going to be doomed to abject failure, and as time goes on it becomes clear to everyone that these two perfectly wonderful human beings deserve to be together.
Much of the fun of Match Fit, which sports sparklingly clever, witty and entertaining dialogue and a globally situated narrative which takes Jake and Ruby, and us happily along with them to Las Vegas, Paris and Edinburgh, is the way Ronald keeps them apart without everything feeling repetitive and drawn out and all while keeping the fizz of romantic possibility alive while a deeply satisfying and mutually supportive friendship develops.
‘I’m glad everyone’s having a grand old time,’ Ruby said loftily. ‘Because I am actually in the depths of despair.’
Patricia caught Jake’s eye. ‘I’d like to see her on a good day.’
Jake smiled. ‘Every day’s a good day with Ruby.’
That’s one of the novel’s chief joys – watching as an unexpected friendship develops and willing both Jake and Ruby to take the possibility of an amazing love story and do something with it.
You want that to happen in most romcoms you read, true, but there’s something about these two characters, Ruby in particular who is a flawed and sweetly awkward delight, that amps up the need for them to take what they have as cute catchphrase-spinning, FaceTime-addicted and fun article-sharing long distance friends and go all the way to the couple you know they are inevitably destined to be.
I just adored these two people. ADORED THEM.
Maybe it was the fact that I was ridiculously tired and was feeling cynical and in need of some reassurance that happiness is all around us if you just care to look, but Match Fit captured my heart in a way few romcoms do because I just loved being with these two quite wondrously good and lovely people.
They made me feel hopeful and joyful and their story was ground but full of promise and the chance beginning anew, and while Match Fit ticks many of the usual romcom boxes, it does it in a way that feel vital and fresh and quietly but joyously alive and which makes you want to the very best for the people at the heart story far more than is even usually the case when, by the nature of the genre, we are usually hugely and heavily invested.