(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia)
Falling in love is really quite delightful.
Stating the obvious there I know, but sometimes when you dive into a rom-com that’s not exactly humming along on all rose-petal fueled cylinders, you could be forgiven for wondering if it’s worth all of the misassumptions, toing-and-froing and the angst and existential shenanigans.
The truly wonderful thing about Never Ever Forever by Karina May is that not once will you have cause to wonder any of the above, not even for a singular swoonworthy second, because she makes love looks as brilliantly, all-encompassingly gorgeous as its well-deserved street cred purports it to be.
Sure, there are the usual rom-com staples, from two competing love interests, one of whom you know won’t make the cut (but which one?!) to all kinds of misunderstandings that add a gentle slapstick element to proceedings while still delivering very real emotional impact and high stakes, and a resolution straight from a true love addict’s wishlist, but May brings vivacity and freshness to proceedings every step of the life-changing way, and in so doing, reflects, the exact dazzling newness of love that all of us want to luxuriate in.
Never Ever Forever is smartly written from start to finish, powered by snappily-rendered characters with the sort of dialogue we all wish we were capable of – just once please, let the perfect zinger form in my mouth right when it’s needed! – and the tantalising idea that maybe losing love one time doesn’t mean you’ve lost it for good.
I finish returning the last of my clothes to the wardrobe and settle onto the bed. There are still a few items on my pink slipper chair. The purgatory pile: clothes that have been worn but aren’t dirty enough to wash.
I’ll deal with that later. First up, I need to work out my plan of attack for facing Wes Preston.
We all want to think that, right?
There’s always the one that got away, that we are convinced deep down, even if we never admit it out loud, would have been the LOVE OF OUR LIFE (yes, those are internalised capitalisations and they are absolutely there, even in our quietest moments) and that if life were inclined to do-overs, and it often is not, would have made us ridiculously happy for the remainder of our all too-short mortal existence.
Wes Preston is that guy for the protagonist of Never Ever Forever but as the novel opens, Rosie Royce is far from thinking that, so angry with the way he ended things with him after a dreamlike start to their grand “childhood sweetheart” love affair that she refuses to drink wine (and why that is must be left to the reading of highly enjoyable novel).
She’s sad and angry, and while you suspect the fact that it’s all still simmering six years after he decamped with not a word from Sydney to London to live (and yep, did not take her; oops bad move) or she wouldn’t be so committed to her grapey abstinence, she’s none too pleased when her life reinvigorating move to Mudgee, a country town in southern New South Wales (Australia), ends up including Wes.
What the ever-loving? Yes, here is Rosie’s big move to leave marketing behind and embrace the delights of radio, meant to redefine everything, suddenly has the lingering odour of overly intrusive past, not the scent you want when reinvention is thrillingly in the air.
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia)
Of course, all that excitement at her new career behind the radio mike is also being tempered by her unexpected co-host, Dr Markus Abrahams, a startlingly handsome, suave TV vet who is convinced he is god’s gift to just about everyone.
How on earth did her envisaged solo gig, the lynchpin of a brand new life chapter suddenly get so ridiculously complicated?
It’s a question for the ages, dear Rosie, but suffice to say, our new radio start has no choice but to plow on and hope that she render something palatable out of a whole lot of ingredients that are refusing to play by the reinvention playbook and may be even trying to actively sabotage it.
It’s all a LOT but the great fun of Never Ever Forever is that May makes it still feel as if out of all this complicated mess that Rosie may yet pluck the stirrings of love true love, whether it’s brand spanking new with Markus – and no, please get your mind out of the gutter, nothing like goes down – or a second go-around with Wes, who, Cupid bless him, seems to genuinely regret his romantic faux pas of just over half a decade earlier.
Who will make it to the novel’s finish line with Rosie and will she be able to get the happy-ever-after once denied her but still it seems a live possibility for this wonderfully capable, smart and funny but very human woman?
I let out a long breath. Finally. I no longer feel like running away from the world. I want to be a part of it.
Well that must of course be left to the reading of this superlative rom-com, but suffice to say that though the outcome may be inevitable insofar as the dictates of the genre mandate that Rosie must find love with someone, May does a superb job of keeping tension alive and keeping you guessing right to the end without raining on the lovestruck parade.
Never Ever Forever is that unicorn of a rom-com novel that fuels the will-they-won’t-they tension without feeling like its a needle caught endlessly in the groove of a well-worn record.
And that makes it a joy because love should take time, and even if there is a love at first sight element to proceedings, which clearly there is not here because #reasons, you want to get a sense that something slow and deliciously wonderful is happening; something so good in fact that by the time the finale arrives, you will clap in delight that love has won out over all manner of life complications.
This is a novel that is bright, feisty, funny and heartfelt, that salutes the glories and frustrations of love but which manages to keep the magic alive even when the real world its best to kill it off unceremoniously and with extreme prejudice.
Does Rosie get her happy ever after? Of course she does, but the giddy pleasure of Never Ever Forever is that how it happens is delightfully and happily complicated, twisting and turning in ways that keeps the narrative running but without making you feel like getting to love true love isn’t worth all the angst and effort.
It absolutely is, and Never Ever Forever is proof that pursuing love is not a waste of anyone’s time, especially if someone like Karina May gets to write so beautifully about it.