ARC Review: Lose You to Find Me by Erik J. Brown

*I was given a copy of Lose You to Find Me in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to HarperCollins and Erik J. Brown*

Synopsis:

Tommy Dees is in the weeds—restaurant speak for beyond overwhelmed. He’s been working as a server at Sunset Estates retirement community to get the experience he needs to attend one of the best culinary schools in the world. And to make his application shine, he also needs a letter of recommendation from his sadistic manager. But in exchange for the letter, Tommy has to meet three conditions—including training the new hire.

What he doesn’t expect is for the newbie to be an old crush: Gabe, with the dimples and kind heart, who Tommy fell for during summer camp at age ten and then never saw again. Unfortunately, Gabe doesn’t remember Tommy at all. The training proves distracting as old feelings resurface, and the universe seems to be conspiring against them.

With the application deadline looming and Gabe on his mind, Tommy is determined to keep it all together—but what if life isn’t meant to follow a recipe?

Review:

With every contemporary I read, I love them more and more. I went into this already thinking I’d love it because it has a food theme and I’m happy to say I was right. Lose You to Find Me was an absolute joy from start to finish.

The childhood best friends that get split up by something and then find each other again years later theme/trope is always fun to read. It was done so well here and it’s so funny that they both act as if they didn’t remember each other because they were embarrassed that the other person didn’t remember. Despite this obviously not being true. Sorry that is a slight spoiler, but it was too funny to not mention.

Tommy was an extremely likeable main character; he definitely had his flaws, but he does become a better person because of them. He was very charming and funny and I really enjoyed how much he loved cooking because of the connection it has to his dad. I’m not going to give away a main plot point, but this connection with his dad is very important for his character growth and I really liked how it played out.

I had a real love-hate relationship with Gabe. The banter between him and Tommy was really fun to begin with and they had really great chemistry but when it was revealed that he was keeping some pretty big things secret from him, I stopped liking him as much and I definitely stopped rooting for them to get together. Tommy could do much better. I did enjoy them watching films and tv shows over the phone though, but that didn’t make up for how crappy Gabe actually was.

The LGBTQIA+ rep in this book was very refreshing and I love how no one questioned any of the characters romantic preferences – as they shouldn’t.

It going to sound really sad to say, but I really enjoyed the parts where Tommy was working. I’ve never worked in the service industry and it was kind of fun to read, I know it’s a horribly stressful job, but Sunset Estates seemed pretty chill.

The interactions with Al and Willa were some of my favourites in the entire book. They were hands down two of the best characters; they provided a lot of comic relief and were so loving with Tommy. They did everything they could to help him achieve his dream and the fact that Al gives him $200 for every holiday is incredibly generous. Plus I love the idea of a gay old man causing chaos in a retirement home. More power to him.

I really like how the story ended and it was actually what I had predicted from around halfway through. The choices made were very mature and showed a lot of character growth from everyone involved.

Lose You to Find Me was a very enjoyable read and is definitely one I am going to recommend to others. If you like YA romances and don’t mind teenagers who make silly decisions, then this is the perfect read for you.