His Grumpy Childhood Friend by Jackie Lau

🍎🍎🍎🍎

The eighth book I read for the Kindle Clear Out Readathon was His Grumpy Childhood friend by Jackie Lau. This is the second book in her newer Cider Bar Sisters series. I know I have mentioned it a lot lately, but Jackie Lau is one of my favorite contemporary authors. If you are looking to add more diversity in your reads, her books are a great options being that she's an Asian author and most of her main characters are also Asian. I feel like there's a lot of push for diversity for Black authors and Black romance, but I feel like if I'm truly going to try to diversity my reads I need to find books by and about all races under the POC nomenclature. This book also covers several prompts, but I decided to use this one to fulfill the POC author prompt.

In this book, we focus on the Cider Bar Sister Charlotte. She is our grumpy heroine and works from home doing something with geology engineering. Don't ask me, a lot of the engineering and geology stuff went over my head, but there are jokes about both throughout the book. She runs into her childhood neighbor and friend Mike at the cider bar one night. Her last relationship ended 5-years ago when her boyfriend proposed at a ball game. This is weirdly one of her greatest nightmares from when she was little, although I wouldn't like it either. Charlotte, a complete introvert, ran from him and ended the relationship. Finally realizing it's been 8 years since entered the dating scene, she asks good-looking Mike to go on practice dates. He says yes, but little does Charlotte know that Mike also needs the practice dates and is nowhere near as experienced as she thinks. Mike is so thoughtful, sweet and considerate of her homebody tendencies and really tries to take her on dates to places he thinks she'll like. He pushes her to be more social, but in a healthy way and knows when to back off. He was so sweet and caring and there was a lovely caretaking scene when she was suffering bad period cramps. 

After practice kissing and dating, Charlotte considers asking Mike to have practice sex, but is worried that she won't be able to keep it as practice. Mike immediately turns her down and says no, if they do have sex it'll be real because he has feelings for her. I loved that they both quickly (like before the first date even happened) were trying to convince themselves that it was just practice and they both were falling for each other from the start. Once again we get great foodie descriptions (and coffee) throughout. Mike is dealing with healing from emotionally abusive parents and has been through therapy. I just love how real Jackie Lau's characters feel. She also doesn't let them wallow in their suffering too long which is nice. She shows how you can be dealing with deep, dark emotions but still trying to live your life as best you can and the happy moments that can be experienced. It's just so hopeful. We also get a hint that Rose (one of the other Cider Bar Sisters) is dealing with depression and I'm very intrigued to get to her story. 

This is the last full length novel in the series out right now. There is a 2.5 Christmas novella about Charlotte's younger sister Julie that I haven't read yet. The next book has been announced that it'll be Nicole's. I can't wait to continue in the series. I'm loving the older characters (in their 30s) and am super excited to see how the other books will unfold. I know I keep saying this, but I couldn't recommend Jackie Lau enough! Please read her if you haven't!

Have you read His Grumpy Childhood Friend?

Bookishly Yours, 

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: His Grumpy Childhood Friend, Jackie Lau, 4-stars, 1 day, eBook, 200 pages, published in 2020