Bea's twin sister Julia and her fiancé, Jean-Claude, decide to fix Bea up with Jean-Claude's roommate, Jamie. The last thing Bea wants is a boyfriend, having come off a bad relationship that she's still feeling 18 months later. Jamie seems stiff and serious, so unlike Bea, who is artistic, neurodivergent and rather tattooed. Their interactions are positive in the physical sense, but "ick" in the social sense. When Julia and Jean-Claude persist in trying to get them together, Bea and Jamie decide to pretend to fall for each other, with the thought that they will have a big break-up in a few months in order to forever discourage the would-be matchmakers from trying again.
It's a stretch to believe that this strategy will work, but it puts into play a storyline into the inner workings of the couple, individually and together, and we see how their previous relationships affected them. The novel also shows lots of family relationships, some good, some not-so-good. Neurodivergence seems to be cropping up in novels more often lately, and I thought it was handled well in this story. Even though I thought the plot was contrived, I still wanted to see how everything worked out.
