Title: Not in My Book
Author: Katie Holt
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publication Date: 2024
Content Warning: This novel includes adult scenes unsuitable for younger readers.
Katie Holt’s debut novel Not in My Book is a romance novel about two aspiring student writers in New York City.
I confess, romance is not my normal go-to genre. While I’ve read and enjoyed plenty of books with a romantic sub-plot it’s very rare that I reach for a novel that is first and foremost a romance. But after reading the plot, I couldn’t resist.
Rosie and Aiden are both part of the same writing programme. Rosie lives and breathes romance while Aiden prefers more serious literary fiction. And the pair hate each other. Tired of their endless arguing their professor issues them with an ultimatum – leave her class for good or, for their project, write a novel together.
As a former creative writing student, a novel about writing a novel in a university setting really appealed to me as a concept.
The book’s primarily protagonist is Rosie who I found to be an easy character to like. She has been hurt by love but has come through the betrayal still wide-eyed and dreaming of romance and a happily ever after. Her family is incredible supportive of her decision to pursue writing and she is determined to make a success of her course both for them and herself. Half American, half Peruvian, I loved the references to her culture that were sprinkled throughout the novel.
In this enemies to lovers romance, the book’s handsome yet obnoxious love interest is Aiden. Born and bred in New York, he initially comes across as cold and uncaring towards Rosie. He often hurts her feelings in class with unnecessarily negative comments about her writing (and Rosie is quick to respond in kind). Over the course of the novel we learn that, unlike Rosie, his family is not supportive of his chosen career path. Aiden finds it difficult to say what he really means/feels and often says completely the wrong thing by accident.
Not in My Book includes mixed media in the form of texts between Rosie and her friends which helped to break up the layout of the paragraphs on the page. Also included are extracts of Rosie and Aiden’s untitled novel. These typically appear at the end of each chapter.
The novel extracts serve a deeper purpose beyond simply entertainment. The main book is told entirely from Rosie’s perspective. Everything we learn about the other characters (Aiden in particular) we learn her views first. However the novel extracts are nearly always from Aiden’s fictional counterpart Hunter’s point of view. With the pair using their own lives as a backdrop for the novel, the extracts allow us to briefly relive the events of the chapter through Aiden’s eyes. Through these the reader learns about his softer and more emotional side before Rosie does.
In Not in My Book Holt successfully creates a novel within a novel that features lots of clever mirroring between the two stories. It can be classed as both a slow burn romance and an enemies to lovers romance with the switch in feelings draw out just long enough to feel believable. All in all a great book with a satisfying conclusion. I might be tempted to read more romance novels in the future.
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