Love & Other Side Effects By Diedre Duncan: ARC Review

Dating beyond your 20s is weird.  Okay dating is weird no matter when, but once you get out of your 20s it gets stranger right?  I know that I am a catch, but like I can’t help but wonder why exactly am I still on the market? Maybe there is something wrong with me??  In Love and Other Side Effects Deidra Duncan was like “I got you girl” and wrote me a story that was the warm hug I needed to help me remember that dating isn’t just a simple straightforward line.

Asher and Jocelyn have been workplace-and-beyond friends for years.  He hides his insecurities behind a lighthearted attitude and practical jokes and she masks her fear of loving loved ones by just not letting anyone get that close.  Luckily, a few events get them to open up to each other and possibly push their relationship to the next stage, if they can get over their individual struggles.

Initially, the pacing was strange for me but we got in the flow of it and were able to get to know these characters and their very real struggles.  Has Asher been a catch for his entire life? Probably! But has he had some things that he has needed to work through himself which made it so that his dating progression wasn’t that easy, straightforward line? For sure.  He confides in Jocelyn in a moment where I knew that this book was going to leave me feeling understood.

“Asher, I don’t think you see yourself clearly. You are such a good man. And you’re nice and successful. And you’re pretty to look at. Any girl would be lucky to have you—”

“Then why am I alone?” The words erupt from me, and I hate them the second they’re out in the universe.

There is so much more than being “a catch”, and yes, I am still working believing this with my therapist.  I am so happy that this message it out there in a romance book because I do believe that I can’t be the only thirty-something person out here needing it’s warm embrace.