Second Draft at Love: The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka
I’m usually not one for romances about writers. Ironic considering I am a writer, I know. Many authors struggle to balance the character’s written words and written emotions. The two stories often get mirrored in an overly-cheesy way. There are way too many metaphors. Too many cliches. Both stories end up suffering—both the fictional book and fictional fictional book. And while “The Roughest Draft” author Emily Wibberly and Austin Siegemund-Broka did struggle at times to keep my attention in passages about writing passages, the book overall did an okay job at romance.
Note to self: NEVER co-write a book.
We start off the book knowing nothing and stay that way for a while. Katrina lives with her boyfriend and former-agent Chris, whom she doesn’t like very much. Neither do I. She doesn’t like to talk about her past as a writer, even though that seems to be one of her only personality traits. We know nothing about what happened. Nathan is promoting his newest novel, but can’t stop getting comments about his last book. We know nothing about what happened. The first ten chapters were like pulling teeth, trying to understand anything going on.
Once Chris blackmails his own fiance into a book deal for money, the authors push the forced proximity troupe by making Katrina and Nathan share a seemingly random Florida house to write a sequel to their NYT Bestselling masterpiece. Has no one told them a sequel is never as good? Katrina and Nathan don’t talk, except for bitter book plot ideas. They awkwardly type while staring over the other’s shoulder. They cannot stand one another, making a love story into a divorce book (that ends up getting pretty darn romantic, I will say). It took me halfway through the book to even start to like Katrina and Nathan, never mind liking them for each other. I understand a slow burn. I live for a slow burn. This book was a whisper of smoke in a dark January chimney.
I both liked and disliked the characters at times, but I always enjoyed their perspectives and relationship with each other. My main qualm with this book is that the romance didn’t quite kick in at all until halfway through the book. It was just writing and bickering with no real explanation, or an illusive “they must have known” run-on thought. Know what!
It’s also worth mentioning that I hated Chris. His vile narcissistic manipulative energy was the only real driving force that kept me looking for things to like in Nathan, and may have been the leading push for me to keep reading.
In the end, Katrina and Nathan seem to write a pretty good book. If published a la Marriage Vacation, I might like it even more than the actual book. Okay book. Not my favorite, but good enough to finish. I might recommend it to those who like books about writers because it does fit that troupe.
3.5 stars
