ellie's Reviews > Josh and Gemma Make a Baby

dnf @ 48%

this was anything but the adorable romcom i was expecting. if i could unread this book, i would.

one star may seem super harsh, but if y’all were to ask me to name at least one thing about this book that i enjoyed?? remotely even liked!?



i will warn you that this review is so ranty and spoilery, and i ain’t even sorry about it :)

i know romcoms are a lil OTT. the humour. the embarrassing moments. the cliches. the humiliation. the walking disaster heroine who’s life is hanging on by a thread. the meddling family. the smooth talking hero who could have saved us a fuck tonne of time if he’d just told the heroine he fancied her in the beginning.

could have saved me the fucking hassle.

the first thing that is typical of a lot of romcoms and romance in general is having the heroine just be constantly shat on. by life. by her family. by love interests. by strangers. by colleagues. by the universe.

and dear Gemma was no exception. but it was the usual trope on fucking roids, lemme tell you. the first two chapters were enough to make me wanna dnf but i persevered.

i can’t stand when authors try to make me sympathise with a heroine by just whacking up the trauma-factor. it’s just suffocating to read and doesn’t make me pity her... it just makes me hate the book bcos not all women have to constantly suffer, okay?

not only is Gemma divorced, but her husband cheated on her with his now-wife. they’ve been together ten years since the affair and have three perfect kids together... while Gemma cannot conceive.

that was sad enough, then we find out Gemma walked in on them fucking in her own goddam house after she finds out about her infertility which her then-husband said he didn’t care about.

fast forward to the present, and Gemma is a pariah. she’s a mess. she’s chubby (which is constantly thrown at her like she should be embarrassed and ashamed??). everyone in town knows about her infertility and uses it as a way to openly mock her, belittle her and diminish her worthiness, like she’s lesser bcos she’s infertile. all bcos her ex told people the details of her infertility.

i mean, within the span of the first two chapters the amount of random people who just openly made fun of her in her own house was bizarre. she chucks food on herself, she’s told she looks like a “lumpy cucumber”. she’s labelled as desperate. one woman tries to force her son to go on a pity date with her. another man told her “no wonder you can’t keep a man”.

the guy who’s mother was trying to convince him to date Gemma tells his mother within earshot of Gemma how her ex-husband told him “the inside of her abdomen looks like a grenade went off. Apparently, the medical resident fainted when he saw it.”

then finished that sentiment off with Gemma “dresses like a slob, eats like a hoover, and has no self-respect. The divorce wrecked her. She’s second-hand goods.”

this was all within the first two chapters. there’s trying to stir sympathy within the reader... then there’s just pissing me tf off. like can you not ease up just a little? let the woman breathe!

this woman was shamed for being infertile🤡 didn’t know infertility shaming was a thing, but okay??



the fat shaming was so casual most of the time too. her mum would say shaming shit to her like it was normal but was presented as the loving doting mother who always means well... nah fuck that. honestly fuck that.

then Josh was kinda annoying and weird too. like he said this to Gemma when she approached him to be her donor:

“It’s a no.” Josh gives a firm, final nod. “I’m not some horse you can put out to stud. I’m kind of surprised, Gem. I never thought you viewed people like objects that you can use. I thought better of you. I’m a person, you know?”

she literally just asked if you’d be her sperm donor?!? idk why you’re getting all deep and offended😭 she didn’t do anything nasty or malicious. she admits she’d want her donor to be someone like him with all his qualities and lists them in detail, low-key licking his arse, and somehow amongst all of that, big man gets offended???

okay? go off i guess.

i wanted to dnf from here bcos it was all too much. but i hadn’t even seen Josh and Gemma in a romantic proximity yet so wanted to at least give that a chance.

in the mean time...

Gemma goes on a live zoom call with her boss and half the fucking company in her bra that says JUICY on it bcos she’s just woke up. why do authors just constantly embarrass their heroines?!?! i truly don’t understand it. let them have some peace, i beg of you.



you what i could have seriously done without??

Ian Fortune – “the world-renowned self-help guru.”

(i also don’t understand why she had to preface his name like that everyone time she spoke about him or introduced him...)

Ian is her cliche, smarmy boss who i imagined as the evil executive in Alvin and the Chipmunks. idk why. who she was dating for more than half of the book.



he was weird as fuck and Gemma’s obsession with him and his “fancy quotes” made me want to kms. girly really has one of his infamous quotes painted on her fucking living room wall: ”love is the best gift I’ve ever had the privilege to give.”

it’s like she thought “live laugh love” was too basic, so used that one instead to be ✨unique✨

and Gemma truly believes this man came up with all of his “inspirational quotes” as though they haven’t been circulating tumblr since 2011 in an edgy font with aesthetic pictures of Effy Stonem off her tits.

(and i searched for his name when i was reading to find more info on him bcos i was curious even tho i dnfed, and turns out he stole all of his inspirational guru shit from Josh💀 nah Ian can keep that shit bcos am i supposed to be impressed Josh came up with all of that shit and not Ian? bcos either way, the quotes were shit).


 
now the romance...

what romance? where? sincerely show me where there is any romance??

Josh and Gemma barely interact (and i know i dnfed but this was one of the reasons why). they interact TWICE in the first 30% and both encounters were mediocre and brief at best. it got to the point i skimmed everything else bcos i just wanted to get to Gemma and Josh within the same scene, at least. Gemma at work, Gemma with Ian, Gemma at the support group, Gemma chatting shite in her own head... all of it was so damn boring and contributed absolutely nothing to the story. just made me dislike Gemma the more i had to endure.

any time they actually spend time together was followed by “we spent the next few hours doing...” “time flew by as we...” etc. show me. for the love of fucking god S H O W M E. how am i supposed to be convinced of their undying connection when they barely spend time together?

you’d think with them being in each other’s lives so much there’d be some history. some chemistry. some memories. some intensity. but no. they had no spice. no flare. nothing special whatsoever. seriously, the lack of chemistry was painful. i mean, they’ve known each other for 24 years.

i had to stop at the below interaction tho. for my own sanity. my own mental health. for the sake of humanity. i wanted to see where Josh and Gemma could go but i–

i have no words to explain or articulate the horror and dread which took over my body like some sort of suffocating, feral disease at the scene when Gemma is so horny bcos of the hormones she’s taking, Josh offers to ring her phone for her constantly for a few minutes bcos it vibrates when it rings, so Gemma can use it to have an orgasm on a bench in Central Park.

“Your phone vibrates,” he says in a logical tone.
“Um, yes?”
“Well, I’ll keep calling, so it vibrates continuously until you get…relief.”
I stare at him, but he refuses to look back at me. I let out a long sigh. It’s crazy, it’s insane, it’s…brilliant.

 
THEN— THEN GET THIS FUCKING SHIT. Josh is the one standing next to her and calling the phone while Gemma is on her way to being arrested for public indecency, until the phone rings while it’s vibrating against Gemma’s vagina and it’s no longer Josh, but Gemma’s mother.

i really wish i was making this shit up.

then they go to their fertility appt. where shit just got worse and worse— a couple in the waiting room are arguing bcos the woman has an STD and accuses her husband of giving it to her by cheating. turns out she was cheating on him with her usual “boy toy”... who the couple accuse Josh of being👁👄👁 while Josh isn’t said boy toy, idk if the author was trying to be funny by having some slap-stick occur, but the couple try and attack Josh in the waiting room with a Georgia O’Keefe painting and a pair of Prada heels.

i reiterate. i really wish i was making this shit up.

the painting is smashed over Josh’s head like he’s in some SNL skit.

i had to stop there. my brain couldn’t handle this god awful book anymore. i even skimmed ahead to get more info and turns out Ian is cheating on Gemma *pretends to be shocked* and she gets fat shamed again.

so nope. this is not for me. can’t see how this book is for anyone tbh. it made me wanna gouge my eyeballs out with a spork.

[edit: i just read the epilogue out of curiosity and it was pretty damn cute ngl. so i suppose that was a redeeming quality of the book].