Waiting for Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrew 

Anne loves romantic comedies and is obsessed with finding her version of Tom Hanks. She’s convinced that she can have the fairy tale romance she’s seen countless times in movies such as You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle. She just needs to find that perfectly lovable type of guy you’ve seen Hanks portray in those films.

There is something magical about the Nora Ephron trinity of rom-coms, that also includes my favourite film, When Harry Met Sally. All three films are referenced in this novel numerous times. The story sees the main character basically living out a rom-com, and the book plays like it could actually be a movie.

Anne is so in love with the genre of romantic comedies that she is writing one herself. She has a hard time believing her luck when she falls into a job on the set of an actual movie. She doesn’t live anywhere near Hollywood and might not have been thinking about a career as a screenwriter, but this seems like it could be a big break for her. Of course, she just does the job of assistant to the director to the best of her ability and doesn’t try to squirm a writing job. And then she has an awkward first encounter with the lead actor. It’s like something right out of the movies. He teases her and seems to not even like her. Could this be the start of her real-life rom-com?

My wife read this one before me and thought I would get a kick out of it. So I picked it up as soon as she was done. Overall, it was an enjoyable read even if it did stick a little too closely to the rom-com genre. It was a little predictable but fun, nonetheless.

My 2021 Reading Log – coming soon!