Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson

Book Synopsis:

Savannah Cade's dreams are coming true. The Claire Donovan, editor-in-chief of the most successful romance imprint in the country, has requested to see the manuscript Savannah's been secretly writing while working as an editor herself—except at her publishing house, the philosophy is only highbrow works are worth printing and commercial fiction, particularly romance, should be reserved for the lowest level of Dante's inferno. But when Savannah drops her manuscript during a staff meeting and nearly exposes herself to the whole company—including William Pennington, new publisher and son of the romance-despising CEO herself—she races to hide her manuscript in the secret turret room of the old Victorian office.

When she returns, she's dismayed to discover that someone has not only been in her hidden nook but has written notes in the margins—quite critical ones. But when Claire's own reaction turns out to be nearly identical to the scribbled remarks, and worse, Claire announces that Savannah has six weeks to resubmit before she retires, Savannah finds herself forced to seek the help of the shadowy editor after all.

As their notes back and forth start to fill up the pages, however, Savannah finds him not just becoming pivotal to her work but her life. There's no doubt about it. She's falling for her mystery editor. If she only knew who he was.

My Review:

4/5 stars. This was a cute story, and I got invested in the plot. I enjoyed how much the main character loved books and writing—as a writer and reader myself, it was very relatable. However, I had issues with a lot of modern references that pulled me out of the story, as well as some odd similes that were doing too much and not serving their purpose. But overall, the love interests had great banter, and the overall messages of the book were nice.

This review might make it seem like I have a lot more criticisms than aspects I liked, despite the four-star rating, but it's just that I have more specifics to say about the parts I didn't like. They aren't weighted as much in my rating.

I'll start with what I enjoyed. It was clear that the author understands the equal joys and frustrations of being a writer. There were some great lines about why writers love what they do, but I also related to Savannah feeling like her book is perfect from the first draft and not knowing how to implement edit suggestions, but then realizing the final product is so much better.

I was invested in her manuscript journey. I enjoyed seeing what suggestions her "mystery editor" made for her, and I wish we could've seen a bit more of her actual writing thought process. I wanted to see her get it submitted on time and get accepted. The ending actually surprised me a bit. Things worked out, but not in the way I expected.

Savannah and Will had great banter and chemistry. I loved how easily their conversations flowed, and you could tell they were both into each other. Even their banter while writing to each other semi-anonymously was good. Although, speaking of that, it was obvious from the start (even before I started reading, because of the blurb) that the mystery editor was Will. The few misdirections weren't really throwing me at all. I was more just confused at what the actual explanation was.

A character I really didn't enjoy, but he was supposed to be unlikable, was Ferris. He was such a jerk. Who breaks up with their girlfriend of eight years, only to get together with her sister the next day, propose to her three months later, stay engaged for eight months, then break up with her by confessing their still-active feelings for the ex-girlfriend two weeks before getting married?! That whole plotline was terrible (in a good way).

Now I'll move on to what I didn't like. All of my critiques sort of stem from the same issue: the author trying to be modern and relatable but failing at times. First, the modern brand/event references. This is partly a personal preference, but I generally don't like when books reference things like Instagram. Even if a book is set in the real world in the present time, it feels like certain real named things or people shouldn't exist in "book universe." Historical references are fine, but this book had a reference to "the 2020 pandemic," which had only happened two years ago when this was published. That was very cringey to me.

Similarly, I dislike when books reference other real books or authors. This book mentioned Francine Rivers at the end, which goes back to what I said above. The book also did something weird I've never seen in a book before. It referenced its own title, with the characters joking about how "Meet Me in the Margins" would make a good title for a book about their situation. That was very meta, but in a bad way that made me cringe.

The final cringey aspect was all the similes the author used that were way too specific. They were also very frequent at times. I will give examples of some of the worst ones I noticed, four of which were all on just two pages: "she waves an arm down the hallway like Vanna White showing off a yacht behind a shimmering curtain," "so we can stand around like sorority girls welcoming the newest pledges on the lawn," "I feel as if I've entered the last moments of the Titanic before it completely submerged," "screeching like an off-key violin," and finally, "hugging her like a beloved sailor returned after a decade." Why a sailor?

Content:

Language: none

Sexual Content: descriptions of a woman's body, a man harassing a woman to dance with him, a mention of "a handsy couple going to town," kissing described in some detail

Violence/Gore: none

Drugs/Alcohol: none