(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia)
There are romantic comedies, and then there are ROMANTIC COMEDIES (and, no, the demarcation does not lie in using all-caps alone).
The greater difference, and one readily apparent in the superlative effort that is Just One Taste by Lizzy Dent, is the way in which the almost-obligatory tropes are used, the ones that define a genre and which even those of us who crave endless originality demand in every rom-com we read.
In lesser works, and yes, sorry to rank books but some are created more equal than others, the boxes are ticked, the two protagonists are attracted, dance around each other, fall out and then declare undying love for all time, and that’s about it.
We’re happy that love has been found, expressed, consummated and sustained but while it’s all lovely and heartwarming, it’s all very surfacey and glances off you almost instantly once the last page is turned and the book closed.
But in the top run rom-coms like Just One Taste you get a whole lot more than just some mandatory box ticking and romantic moves across the chess board of life; you get characters who are actually worth knowing, whose humanity and life experience actually matters, and whose declaration of love, sweet love is not simply a fleeting thing of vaporous beauty, temporarily enchanting though that may be, but something real, substantially and impactful.
Dad’s unfinished manuscript and the urn carrying his ashes are sitting on my bedside table. I only just collected them yesterday, a job I’d put off until the very last minute. I haven’t read the manuscript yet–another reason I wasn’t ready to see Leo. The mere thought of it feels like tearing open a crusty wound.
And because of all that, books like Just One Taste stay with you, long after you have reluctantly read the epilogue, slowly closed the novel, hoping that if you delay the closing long enough that a whole other book will appear at the end so you can stay in the emotionally muscular and meaningful world of these characters just a while longer.
How rare is it to feel like that?
Not just in a book but in life; it’s why novels like Just One Taste mean so much because they don’t just get us swoon-worthy and dreamily romantic, which is delightful don’t me wrong but not quite enough over the mid-to-long-term, but they stay with me, leaving a lasting impression on you in a way there more factory-ready genre-mates simply don’t.
So, what makes books like Just One Taste stick with you, such that while other titles and plots struggle to be recalled from the great reading morass that is your brain, these beauties stride confidently to the front of the pack, praise for their superlative writing, narrative and characterisation tripping from your tongue as you talk to friends, colleagues and strangers like the newly converted?
For a start, for all their fantastical, fairytale-ish, which, again, we love and want and need, and which is all kinds of escapist delight, these novels feel like the stuff of real life.
“Ha!” you scoff in that melodramatic way of yours, how on earth can something designed to beguile and enthrall in the most ephemeral of ways, even begin to feel the stuff of the everyday, and honestly, do you even want it to?
(courtesy official Lizzy Dent Instagram)
Yes, you do, you really do, because while escaping from the disappointing miseries of life is a beautiful, if temporary, balm, we also want to be assured that when we return to the slings and arrows of misfortune that is the stuff of real life – not completely, true, but lordy, does real life need better PR or what? – that some of that romantic magic will linger.
That all those lovely feelings and that giddily stirred up hope will actually leave some sort of lasting impact; it may feel like too much to ask but in a novel like Just One Taste it feels possible, primarily because Dent expends so much fruitful effort crafting a protagonist in Olive Stone who is talented and beautiful and clever, yes, but who is also broken and sad about life, and flawed in that way that isn’t fatal but which relatable and honest, the sort of fallibility with which we are all intimately acquainted if we are willing to be honest with ourselves.
She was estranged from her Italian chef father at the time of his sudden and unexpected death for some fairly compelling if, it turns out, somewhat erroneous reasons, and so when he wills his restaurant to her and his dying wish is that Olive completes his longer-for cookbook with the restaurant’s sous chef, and effectively her dad’s surrogate son, Leo Ricci, she isn’t sure what to think or feel.
Her response to these massive changes in the landscape and trajectory of her life would be more half-done set-ups for a grand if hollow love story in lesser rom-coms but in Just One Taste it is the weighty foundation for the substantial love story and life revelations that follow.
‘Leo,’ I say panicked. Afraid to leave it like this. ‘We can’t do that again. Not before we’ve gone through the proposal. Before we’ve closed the door on Nicky’s. It’s too confusing. Please.’ I wring my hands as his eyes trace the line of my body underneath my soaking dress.
His eyes fix on me, and I watch his face fill with a sudden clarity. He nods.
‘Do what?’ he says with a wry smile. ‘ We were just dancing. I don’t remember a thing.’
Dent goes to a lot of trouble to paint an arresting and affecting picture of who Olive is, and while she is funny and clever, she’s also prone to overthinking and anxiety and suffused with emotional pain, all of which means that while redemption and healing inevitably beckon – this is a rom-com after all, and this sort of outcome is practically mandatory in an almost legally binding way – the road there won’t be easy.
For a start she wants to sell the restaurant while Leo manifestly does not, and so, as they set on a month-long trip through Italy, which is presented with great love affection in all its culinarily-rich, sun-soaked glory, theirs is a relationship full of testing and micro-aggressions, one that we know will end well by the dictates of the genre but which will crack them wide open as only great love can before overwhelmingly wonderful romance knits them back together again in ways that heal and renew them and set them off on a whole new course in life.
The key thing in this grand and gorgeous love letter to Italy and love of the richest, most substantial kind, is that we feel as if we’re reading about two very real people, and so, while it’s all sigh-worthy romance and loveliness of the kind that lifts the mortal weight of living just a little, it’s also about overcoming pain and loss, dealing with grief and finding a lasting way out the other side.
It’s hard not to fall head over heels in love with Just One Taste just like Olive and Leo fall for each other, with the best bit being it all feels so emotionally intense and full of substance, and so while Cupid does his thing and the bluebirds of happiness flit merrily in and around, and we feel our souls lighten just enough to feel like we’re floating, we also feel grounded and emotionally self-aware, and know that, maybe, just maybe, this is how life can really be and maybe all that pain has a happy-ever-after, after all.