After one bitter comment to the wrong person, Mona is forced to take a leave of absence, and she feels the precarious life she’s spent years building up crumbling around her. Unfortunately, her apartment building is literally crumbling around her. After her landlady falls and hurts herself, Mona agrees to watch over the building and its residents in her place, with a secret task from the landlady’s niece to prepare the building for sale. As she starts to get to know the other residents, particularly a cute guy named Sami, it becomes clear that the building’s sale will cost these people their homes, and it’s up to Mona to decide whether it’s worth it for the life of her dreams.
I read Natalie Sue’s debut I Hope This Finds You Well almost two years ago, and for the record I love that she’s cornering the market on books about girls with Iranian immigrant parents making questionable decisions and then realizing that the real treasure was the friends they made along the way. It’s a niche genre, but I’m here for it.
I’m pretty sure I read I Hope This Finds You Well in the midst of a bad insomnia episode so the details are a little fuzzy, but based on my memory You’ll Love it Here is more focused on the romance. It’s a pretty cute romance so that’s fine, but I think the plot/pacing suffers a little as a result. Natalie Sue’s debut has such a snappy premise, and I would say that You’ll Love it Here is a bit less exciting. There’s plenty of humor and good characterization to all of the building’s residents which is fun, but the central plot of Mona trying to secretly prepare the building for sale because she thinks that returning to her advertising job and getting a new apartment will make her happy as she’s getting to know the residents and really finding a community for the first time is kind of…Disney Channel. Like, lying to people and getting in all of these tense, goofy situations where she almost gets found out, and having everyone get mad when they find out but they ultimately forgive her—this is the plot of Camp Rock.
It gets very rushed towards the end, with a few big time skips during which we just kind of have to assume that Mona did some healing, both with herself and in her relationships with her Mom and the other residents. The way that Mona fixes the situation ends up being…well, it was a little GoFundMe Ex Machina if you know what I mean. It’s not a bad book—it is pretty charming and easy to read for the most part, and it’s fun to meet all of these wacky characters and come to like them, but it’s pretty predictable and the ending feels like a bit of an afterthought. Either better pacing or just a weirder plot overall would have served the book well.
Thank you to Natalie Sue and William Morrow for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!
Happy reading!
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