susan elizabeth phillips it had to be you

Like plantation slaves, the National Football League’s Chicago Stars had come to pay homage to the man who owned them. It Had to Be You starts out with Phoebe Sommerville attending her father’s funeral in a wildly inappropriate outfit and holding her toy poodle, who then pees all over the top of the casket (yes, really), but before that unfortunate incident comes this line, which tipped me off to exactly the kind of mess this book was going to be:īeads of perspiration from the midday heat glimmered on skin that ranged in color from a glistening blue-black to a suntanned white.

I won’t be offended one bit if you’re not able to handle more and need to stop reading here. This is a tough time for all of us and we’ve all got far too much on our plates. The book contains mentions, often graphic, of molestation and rape by a family member, racism, misogyny, multiple uses of the N-word, fatphobia and comments on eating disorders that haven’t aged well, kinky sex roleplay that involves one partner pretending to be an underage girl BUT WITHOUT INFORMING THE READER THAT THIS IS ROLEPLAY UNTIL AFTERWARDS, emotional, verbal, and physical abuse, alcoholism, a mistaken abduction and sexual assault that briefly traumatizes a main character, a drunk driving death, and multiple depictions of Donald Trump where he’s portrayed true to life, being only too happy to help pull one over a main character. (Disclaimer: This book, and thus this post, is chock-full of content warnings. I don’t usually eviscerate novels, but this one deserves it. This book is still very much in print, to the point that new copies are being purchased and circulating. I went into this knowing full well that romance has changed immensely since 1994 (THANK GOD), but also curious because my library copy was almost pristine. I’d never read this particular author, but I know she’s a big name in romance, so I figured sure, why not. I didn’t find anything there that struck my fancy, but another group suggested It Had To Be You by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Avon, first published 1994.

So, approximately three million years ago, when I was naively and optimistically making out my lists for this year’s reading challenges (LOLSOB), I perused the suggestions for Book Riot’s 2020 Read Harder Challenge prompt for a romance starring a single parent.

Susan elizabeth phillips it had to be you