if you like this book, you'll like this book | rom com book recommendations

hello welcome back to my channel or welcome if you're new my name is chandler and i am your favorite award-winning show dog uh today i'm gonna be talking to you guys about books that i think you should read based on other books this is not a new idea this is not revolutionary but it's something that i've wanted to do for a while a lot of you guys have actually asked recently if i could do a video like this and i thought what better time than today uh so in this particular version i'm going to be talking all about rom-coms or just uh primarily traditionally published romances if you guys have any recommendations for other videos like this you'd like to see for another genre let me know totally willing to do that you know historical romance fantasy whatever just leave it in the comments down below but today we're doing rom-coms and i have quite a list to tell you guys about the books on this list are not necessarily one-to-one comparisons so if you're looking for a book with an identical plot or identical characters you're not going to really find that but i think if you're looking for books with a similar vibe to your favorites you might be able to find that on this list so but for 13 let me tell you about some books that i think you'll like if you liked you know the other book first up we have beach read by emily henry i think if you like this book you're really going to like the x talk by rachel lynn solomon so if you haven't read beetread it is about two writers who are kind of in a rut one summer and they end up switching genres so they get out of the writing slump that they're in the x talk is about two people working at a failing radio station and they have to kind of come together to pretend to be exes essentially to give relationship advice to other people or at least that's sort of like the ploy for their particular radio show they're gonna pretend to be exes and they're gonna give relationship advice but the catch is that they've never actually dated so both of these books kind of have similar plots in that they've got two people who were kind of reluctant to work together but they have to work really close together and if you're a romance lover like me you know that that's kind of like a forced proximity trope and that's definitely present in both books i feel like beyond that the relationship building for both of these books kind of follows a similar pattern it is sort of a slow burn as the characters get to know each other throughout the books you don't have them jumping into bed together and then trying to fight their feelings for each other they definitely build feelings as the book goes on and then eventually it develops into a romantic relationship i personally like that i think that that's a good formula for romance i know a lot of people really hate insta love so you don't have to worry about that in either of these books additionally i just feel like the overall tone of these stories was so so similar i think going into betrid i expected it to be this like light-hearted rom-com and that's not really what it is it's not something that is super hard hitting or depressing but it does have these kind of poignant moments and you do have a heroine who is dealing with a lot in her life she had a really good relationship with her father before he passed away but after he passes she finds out some secrets about him that are kind of making her see her relationship with him in a new light similarly in x talk we have a heroine who is desperate to love and be loved she really wants a fulfilling romantic relationship but she is jumping too quickly into relationships in the past and now she is hesitant to kind of get into this relationship with her co-host on the radio show so in both circumstances you have these heroines who are going through hard things who are dealing with a lot and i don't know about you guys but i personally do really enjoy when a story is willing to kind of take a risk in making a story perhaps not entirely relatable if that makes sense i think in a lot of ways people will be able to relate to these characters but i like that in both stories you don't have this trap that authors often fall into when they write rom-coms where you have heroines who are just very surface level so that you can jump into their shoes in this case i mean if you don't relate to the character i think you'll still enjoy the story but i do think it was kind of a risk that paid off in both cases you do have heroines who are dealing with things and who do have kind of hard things that they're going through i think this will also particularly work for you if you are someone who doesn't really like the cheesiness i guess you could say of a rom-com you want something a little bit more relatable a little bit more hard-hitting perhaps um without being you know too heavy and weighing you down too much i think both of these reads are super fun and i think the heroes are both that kind of mix of soft and a little bit witty you don't have a guy who's like too too soft he's got a little bit of like bite to him but overall he like very much is into the heroin i think that's something that a lot of us are looking for in a romance so overall i think these are very very comparable and i think if you liked one you will probably really like the other so next up if you liked the un honeymooners by christina lauren i think you're really gonna like shipped by angie hockman now i feel a little bit weird using this as a comparison because in the marketing material for shipt it is compared to the unhoneymooners by christina lauren and the hating game by sally thorne so it seems a little bit cheap or like a little bit cheating to kind of compare these books together because i mean obviously they already are very comparable but i think it's not just the plot that makes a book similar to whatever it's compared to the tone the vibe the writing has to be similar as well in this case that's very much true if you really are just desperate for another fun beachy read that has a christina lauren feel specifically because the writing is not sally thorne it's definitely christina lauren-esque i think you're really going to enjoy shipped so the unhoneymooners if you haven't read it is a fake dating situation wherein two people who kind of hate each other have to go on a honeymoon together and pretend to be in love they are going on behalf of their respective siblings who have just gotten married but got sick before they could go on this non-refundable honeymoon so their respective siblings have to take their places and they don't really like each other and it's fun there's a lot of antics and banter and they do obviously end up falling for each other and then in ships you have two battling co-workers in this case and i think that's kind of where the hating game comparisons come in although i don't think the relationships are similar enough to really compare those two books but in shift you have two co-workers who are going on a cruise together they both work for a cruise ship line and they have to go on this cruise to get inspired to put together presentations to eventually hopefully compete for a promotion at work so they're kind of battling each other they're sort of already in enemies enemies-to-lever situation there too because there was some tension at work previously so there's a lot to work with in the story there's a lot of fun tension to play with again this is similar to the last two books i talked about there is focus in both of these books on the development of the heroine and in what she wants out of life and i think that's really cool and really fun to read about i love a good romance that is like solely focused on the romance but sometimes it's fun to read about characters who you can relate to a little bit more and i think honestly i might prefer shipt in this regard too because i feel like shipt goes the extra mile and really getting us to see the nitty-gritty of what it takes to get a promotion at work almost and if that sounds a little bit silly i'm sure a lot of us can relate to like what getting a promotion at work could look like perhaps or like what that process is like but i feel like i appreciated the time that was spent on this i think sometimes in romance like you have these fun setups for plot and then they never really end up coming to be anything like in the hating game there's this promotion at work that comes up but it ends up not really mattering at the end in this book it matters up until the very end and you do get to see our heroine kind of battle it out and fight some kind of shitty things at work which i think was kind of a cool added element to the story additionally i really liked the heroes in both uh the honeymooners and shipt they both have a lot more wit and banter to them than maybe some of the other heroes and some of these stories i'm going to talk about so if you like a hero who's kind of willing to give the heroin a little bit of i think you're really going to enjoy these books and while i wouldn't say that either of these books are like particularly life-changing i think if you are on a beach somewhere these are both perfect books to pick up they have just enough interest to keep you reading but they're not so heavy um and bogged down with plot that you're gonna be like okay i want something a little bit more like lighthearted and easy but i think if you're in the market for something like this i would definitely give shipped a try next up are the two books from the thumbnail if you liked taking out danny brown by talia hibbert i think you're really going to enjoy tools of engagement by tessa bailey now on the surface level these books could not be more different the plots of both of these books are so so different and the characters in ways are different as well but i think overall the tone of this book and the character relationships are very very similar and i'm not gonna lie these are two of my favorite romances of all time so if you have picked this book up you absolutely need to pick this book up so take a hit danny brown is about our phd student danny obviously as the title implies she ends up falling for a security guard who works at her university that she works at his name is zaf and he is kind of a strong silent type he is definitely misunderstood but he is definitely very very soft at his core and danny could not be more different than that she is often described by people as kind of cold and unfeeling and she's had a hard time with maintaining relationships because she is so focused on her career so focused on getting to where she wants to be that oftentimes she can neglect her romantic relationships and this has left her in a situation where she doesn't really feel like she can confide in people and get very intimate with people similarly we have bethany in tools of engagement and completely different plot bethany is in a situation where she is kind of competing on this hgtv style show she comes from a family of house flippers and she is the person who usually stages the home at the end of the flips but she wants to do a flip of her own and compete against her brother essentially and it gets picked up for a tv show and this story is about bethenny as she sort of learns to confide in her foreman the guy who um is helping her flip this home and it's about her trying to kind of open up to him because she too has been seen as this sort of like type a frigid person and she has a really hard time opening up to people as well i think in both books you have these very strong heroines who really know what they want but are you know flawed and have been misunderstood by partners in the past which is you know super frustrating and i think something that a lot of us can relate to having people in our lives that we want to stick around but don't necessarily get us fully and then both of the heroes in this story both have kind of trauma in their past that they deal with in really healthy ways that kind of help them to be more understanding towards our heroines something that always gets me and always really makes me root for a story is when you have a super super intuitive hero maybe it's because i have someone like that in my own life but having someone who can understand your quirks and anticipate your needs is so rare and so underrated like i said the plots couldn't be more different i don't think i said but this has kind of a fake dating situation which is not at all the same as this this is kind of more of a mutual pining situation but overall i love these romantic relationships i love the dynamic i just i love these and you know i don't purport to know what other people like in romance but i think a lot of us can maybe relate to you know being flawed and still wanting to be loved because of it so if you really liked this book i would highly recommend picking up this book i didn't have the best of luck with fixer up by tessa bailey in the past so i was hesitant to pick this one up however far exceeded my expectations and it was fantastic and while i liked the first book in the series this one is definitely my favorite of uh the two that i've read so overall just like pick both of these up if you haven't picked either of them up pick both of them up and if you have picked this one up pick this one up my next recommendation is for fans of the simple wild by k.a tucker i think if you like this book you're really going to like twice shy by sarah hoggle this is another comparison that seemed a little bit odd to give mostly because the setups for the plots are very different but again the relationship dynamic and the overall vibe i think is very similar in these two books so the simple wild is about a city slicker who goes to alaska to visit a dad that she doesn't necessarily know very well and while she's there she ends up falling for a guy named jonah who is a little bit rough and tumble and a little bit not shy but he definitely doesn't want anything to do with her at the very start of the story twice shy is about a girl who ends up inheriting her aunt's house after her aunt passes away and when she goes to the house to kind of clean it up and figure out what she wants to do with it she realizes that she's not the sole inheritor of this property and so she has to work with the guy that used to garden for her aunt and decide what she wants to do with this property so again service level the stories are very different but wesley the hero and twice shy and jonah the hero and the simple wild could not be more similar if they tried they both have this very gruff outer exterior that really usually doesn't work for me i'm not gonna lie but something about both of these heroes and these stories really worked for me i think there is a pivotal moment in both of the books that gets you to really care for the hero and really understand where he's coming from so it's very similar i guess in those two ways but there are other similarities as well i've mentioned it i feel like in a couple of these like book comparisons but in this story again you have two heroines who are trying to figure out what to do with their lives and they're also dealing with grief in both stories so that's something that is an element present in both so if that's something that's like potentially sensitive to you don't read either of these stories but i think that it handles both in a way that is healthy and productive and also lends itself well to getting our heroines to trust other people in their lives if that makes sense so they're both similar in that way i think both of these stories also really focus on the personal development of both of our heroines in a way that is very similar and i don't really know how to describe it except for they're both at these sort of transitional points in their life they're not entirely sure what they want to do with their career in some of these other books i've kind of talked about it's like they know what they want to do with their career but it's like their personal life in these stories it's more about them figuring out who they want to be as people and what they want to do with their careers so that is a kind of similarity between both of these books and overall i just feel like if you want a good like soft boy romance like he's only soft for you type romance like he's not an to other people but he's just like really soft towards you type romance you need to pick both of these up also didn't really mention it but there is a forced proximity element to both of these books i think so if you're into that i think you'll really like both of these books before we move on to the next book i don't want to forget to mention the fact that twice shy is actually not out yet i feel a little bit bad recommending it but it's a book that i enjoyed so much i had to just like get the recommendation out there so maybe you could pre-order it i'm not really sure comes out on april 6th and i do think you're gonna want to pre-order this if you like and give my romance recommendations typically this is going to be one of my favorite romances of 2021 so take that what you will okay next up if you liked the kiss quotient by helen huang i think you're really really going to enjoy hold me by courtney milan i should probably stop saying it at this point but these books don't share a common plot or really common characters but you do have similar relationship dynamics and vibes so i think if you like one you're going to enjoy the other so if you didn't know the kiss quotient is about stella who is a high-powered mathematician and she is on the autism spectrum and she's had issues in the past with relationships with men specifically when it comes to the sexual arena a lot of men have said in the past that she is kind of cold and she doesn't seem very into sex and she wants to remedy this because she does see the value in romantic relationships so she ends up hiring a male escort named michael and michael basically teaches her the ropes of sex and at the same time kind of breaks down her walls and gets to know her in a more intimate way similarly in hold me we have jay who is a phd and i want to say astrophysics or something just honestly wildly intelligent and he is super attracted to a woman who ends up coming into his office at one point i honestly can't remember exactly why she ends up going to the office her name's maria she's amazing jay can't decide if he really wants to kind of pursue something with maria who doesn't seem to really like him very much or if he wants to pursue something with this person that he's been messaging for the past like year and a half he found someone's website was really interested in the cool kind of sciency things that they were writing about and he has developed this kind of like attraction to whoever he's messaging spoiler alert they are the same person and it is really interesting seeing the kind of development of the relationship between the two characters who kind of hate each other in real life and are very much kind of in love in their online life so i really liked that juxtaposition personally in both stories i think the biggest link obviously is kind of service level you've got the smartness aspect of both of the stories and that's something that i really like i think it's refreshing i mean i do love reading about just like everyday people who have had issues in relationships and find love but there's something really cool about that added element of like these are really smart people and seeing how that kind of interacts with the story i also just like i'm attached to academia i suppose so i do like that element of both of these stories and on top of that we also have uh very casual diversity which i really really like in both of these books in the kiss quotient you have stella who is on the autism spectrum obviously and then you have michael who is swedish vietnamese in hold me you have maria who is a trans latina character and then we also have jay who is a chinese thai american who is bi so both books have really casual representation and i liked that the identities of the characters do play into the story quite a bit but you don't have a focus on trauma in any of the stories too which i really really appreciate i think that's something that's really talked about right now especially um having diverse characters is super important but we don't want all the stories that have diverse characters to be traumatic and i like in romance when you know identities play a part but it's not about how those identities have you know created some sort of traumatic past so another similarity between these books is that i think both of these stories at their core are about people learning to communicate and i guess that's a lot of romance in general but these two stories specifically are about people trying to kind of break down the walls of the other person and figure out how best to communicate and find out about the other person neither story though i would say has like a big miscommunication trope i think that's a thing that a lot of us romance readers kind of stay away from that's not really something that happens in these books but watching these heroes and heroines get to know each other and learn how to respectfully communicate is honestly really rewarding and i really liked it in both of these books and then lastly both of these books in my opinion have some like really really steamy sex scenes so if that's something you're looking for i would definitely recommend picking up these books specifically though i think hold me doesn't get enough attention so i would highly recommend you guys pick that book up and that's all i have to say go read these two books okay this last one um if you like in five years by rebecca searle you will love one day in december by josie silver if you watched my worst books of 2020 video you were probably like why is this being featured in this video you did not like in five years and that is correct but i am a woman of the people and a lot of you guys said in the comments of that video that you really liked in five years because while i didn't think it was a romance and while i sort of hated it a lot of you guys appreciated it for what it was and you did think there was like some romantic element in there that appealed to you or whatever i don't agree but i can respect it and since i respect you guys i thought i'd give you a recommendation that i i think you guys might get behind so i can't really go into the plot of either of these books sadly to kind of let you know in what ways they are similar but i think if you enjoyed in five years but we're kind of hoping it would take more of a romantic spin on things i think you're really going to enjoy it one day in december they do have sort of this focus on trauma and grief that happens in life everyday life i suppose and i think if you're looking for a story with characters who are being i don't know kept away from each other for long periods of time and aren't able to explore their perhaps romantic attractions these are very comparable stories in those ways not gonna go into details on how the plot's similar but they share some similarities as well so i think if you like this book you're probably gonna like this one too i think a lot of people would probably enjoy both of these books around the same time of year as well i think if you're looking for something cozy and christmassy and if you like depressing stuff around christmas this could work for you did either of these books work for me absolutely not they're both one stars but i know you guys and i know that some of you guys like that book so i thought i'd give you a recommendation based on it but that's it those are all of the recommendations i have for you guys today again let me know in the comments down below if you want to see other videos like this for other like genres of romance or for fantasy or whatever or if you hated this and you never want to see it again let me know too i'm always here for your feedback um but that's pretty much it love you guys so much and until next [Music] sunday

Channel: chandler ainsley

Views: 34,356

Rating: 4.9761577 out of 5

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Id: 0yUTF19C8jw

Length: 17min 50sec (1070 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 02 2021