Reviewer: Casee, Holly, and Rowena
Waiting for Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrey
Publisher: Penguin, Berkley
Publication Date: June 11, 2019
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Point-of-View: First
Cliffhanger: View Spoiler » No « Hide Spoiler
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 320
Add It: Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Casee's 2019 GoodReads Challenge, Holly's 2019 GoodReads Challenge, Holly's 2019 New to Me Challenge, Rowena's 2019 GoodReads Challenge, Rowena's 2019 New to Me Challenge
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Can a romcom-obssessed romantic finally experience the meet-cute she always dreamed of or will reality never compare to fiction, in this charming debut adult novel from Kerry Winfrey.

Annie is twenty-seven years old, single, and obsessed with romantic comedies (she and her mother watched them religiously before her mom died). Her dating life is limited by the expectations she’s formed from these movies. She is not as open to new experiences as she might be, because she’s waiting for her Tom Hanks–i.e., a guy she’ll find in the perfect, meet-cute romantic comedy way. When Annie does finally meet her perfect match, it’s not quite in the way she expected, and she’s forced to reckon with the walls she’s built around herself over the years.

Warning: This review contains spoilers. They’re marked behind a spoiler tag, but read on at your own risk.

Annie is an aspiring screenwriter who is obsessed with RomComs. She’s waiting for her Tom Hanks – the embodiment of all her girlhood fantasies. When she’s offered the job as assistant to the director on the set of a movie being filmed in her hometown – a RomCom no less – she wonders if this will finally be her chance to meet the man of her dreams.

Except, it’s Drew Danforth who she sees most often. He’s the lead of the movie and a total jerk. She doesn’t like him..yet she can’t stop thinking about him. Too bad for him she’s waiting for her perfect man..and he’s no Tom Hanks.

Holly: When I read the blurb for this book, I thought it sounded like the perfect, lighthearted summer read. While it was definitely lighthearted, the heroine drove me crazy. She jumped to conclusions and, in general, acted like a jerk for the entire book. I really loved her uncle and her best friend, but she rubbed me the wrong way from the beginning. I have no idea what the hero saw in her or why he kept pursuing her.

Casee: I wasn’t excited to read this book at all. I’m not a huge fan of rom coms in general, so the blurb didn’t interest me. Then I picked it up. I was actually interested for the first chapter or so. Then I realized how horrible the heroine was. She was stuck in the past and waiting for a man that only exists in the movies. She’s an intelligent woman, but so freaking stupid.

Rowena: Yeah, I wanted to read this book because it sounded cute and lighthearted and I’m pretty obsessed with RomComs myself. Too bad I wanted to burn shit down while reading this book. Actually, mostly I just wanted to pull Annie’s hair because holy shit, I thought she was so freaking dumb. I hated the way that she treated Drew throughout the entire book. From beginning to end, she was a bitch to him and like Holly, I had no freaking clue what the hell Drew saw in her.

The thing that drove me up the wall was the thing that drew me to the story in the first place. Annie’s obsession with RomComs. But the lengths that she went with her RomCom obsession was just flat out dumb. When she said, “Chloe! He.Has.A.Houseboat.” I wanted to smack the shit out of her. I stuck with the book because I thought for sure, Annie would grow up and she would learn her lesson and she’d stop being so freaking dumb but nope. In the end, I still didn’t like her and was it just me or did Annie never apologize for the texting fiasco? In a meaningful way?

Holly: Her obsession with RomComs was definitely unhealthy. The way she held up every man to this ridiculous standard set by fictional characters was out of control. If she’d shown some growth, apologized like an adult, realized what she did was wrong..anything..I might have been able to forgive her. But from page 1 to the very last, she was the same.

View Spoiler »Let’s talk about the texting fiasco for a second. She takes a half-naked picture of Drew and texts it to her friend. Except, oops, turns out she didn’t text it to her friend, but a reporter. Her bad. 1) It was really fucking gross that she took the picture in the first place. If Drew had taken a pic of her asleep in his bed and sent it to a friend, she’d have felt justifiably violated. So why wasn’t there some kind of remorse on her part for doing that to him? 2) His reaction really bothered me. He was angry and upset at first, which is totally understandable. But he takes a few days to think about it and just, gets over it? WHAT?! I get he was a nice guy, but that was out of bounds. « Hide Spoiler

 

Casee: View Spoiler »I think taking the naked picture of him (sleeping!) was a total violation. Texting it took it to an entirely different level. The fact that she thought she owed an apology for how he reacted just blew my mind. I was also surprised by how quickly Drew came back and disappointed. « Hide Spoiler

Rowena: View Spoiler »Exactly! She never really apologized for texting the wrong person because she felt she was owed the apology after the way he blew up about it. I was pissed that Drew was so quick to forgive her because he told her all about how his last relationship blew up so she should have understood why he reacted the way that he did and she should have been sorrier. It was a legit hang up for him and I was super annoyed that she didn’t seem sorry enough about what she did. I mean, that she even thought that she was owed an apology really pissed me off. « Hide Spoiler

Throughout the book, I couldn’t connect with her as a character because I did not like the way she treated Drew. She treated him like he wasn’t a man but some other world being that wasn’t human. He didn’t have the same kinds of feelings because he was rich and he was a celebrity so he couldn’t possibly be hurt by the shitty way she was around him. That bothered me because it didn’t make me believe in what they were building between them. Even when she got to know him and should have known better, she treated him like he couldn’t have emotions because he had millions of dollars to comfort him. A lot of shit rubbed me the wrong way and it ruined what I hoped would have been a fun read.

Holly: Oh, and this:

It’s McDonald’s. Drew Danforth, star of screens both large and small, takes me to the home of the McNugget. “This is a joke, right?” I ask as I stare up at the golden arches, but he’s out of the car before he even hears me. Of course, when Drew has a chance to go somewhere good—to take me, someone who rarely goes to fancy restaurants, to a nice place—he decides it would be oh-so-funny to visit a fast-food joint.

The sheer entitlement of this statement kills me. The director of the film suggests they go out together because Drew needs to get out. He basically orders her to go. This is their first time spending time together outside of the set, and she’s FORCED into it by her boss. Yet she gets pissed because “He has millions so he should have taken me somewhere better”. HE DIDN’T INVITE YOU ON A DATE! HIS DIRECTOR MADE HIM GO. Jesus.

Rowena: This is me, reading through both of your thoughts.

Casee: Burn shit down indeed.

Holly: Something else that really bothered me was the lack of diversity in this book. The characters have a full-on conversation about the lack of diversity in RomComs and how the director of the movie wanted to change that, but the only POC in the entire book is talked about once or twice? She’s the co-star of the movie, yet she had zero page time and neither did anyone else of color?!? It made no sense.

Rowena: I completely agree with Holly about the lack of diversity in this one. It’s brought up as part of the reason they were filming a diverse RomCom but everyone in this book, that had actual page time, were lily-white as can be. Like, why bother at all?

Casee: Another thing I didn’t care for was that Annie turned over her screenplay before telling Chloe that it was based on her life. That was pretty fucked. Annie was just a crappy person all the way around.

Rowena: Yeah, I thought Annie turning over her screenplay about Nick and Chloe BEFORE telling her best friend about it was pretty creepy and by that point, I wasn’t surprised that Annie would do something like that to a loved one. I didn’t like her in the beginning and even in the end, I didn’t like her so that about sums up this book for me. There were parts of the book that I liked (mostly Chloe and the Uncle) but for the most part, I didn’t like this one.

Casee: My favorite character was Chloe. I just adored her. She tried to get Annie to see reason throughout the whole book, while she herself was so adorably clueless. But she was real, she could see that Annie was living in la-la-land. Too bad Annie couldn’t see it herself. Then, when she did find her dream man, the one that checked off all her romcom boxes, there were no sparks. WTAF.

Holly: I really liked Chloe. She was so down-to-earth. I definitely wanted more from her. I also really liked Annie’s uncle. He was hilarious.

Casee: This book just wasn’t for me. I’m curious about Chloe and Nick’s book, but not enough to read it. I can certainly imagine Chloe’s character being ruined or completely changed from this book. I really don’t want to see that happen.

Rowena: I’m curious about Nick and Chloe’s book too but I don’t know that I’d actually read it. I’d be scared that the Chloe I loved from this book would turn into an Annie and I don’t know that it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Holly: I’m too scared to read Chloe’s book. I don’t even understand why she was friends with Annie. Every good friendship is filled with give and take. Sometimes you give, sometimes you take. It seemed to me all Annie did was take. Chloe could do better.

Casee: I would give this book a 2 out of 5.

Rowena: I would give this book a 2 out of 5.

Holly: I’m giving this 1.5 out of 5. I liked Drew, Chloe and Annie’s Uncle, but the fact that the book revolved around Annie killed it for me.

Final Grades

Casee: 2 out of 5
Holly: 1.5 out of 5
Rowena: 2 out of 5