Review: A Romantic Comedy, with a different sort of Ending
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 25, 2013
Kismetology by Jaimie Admans is a unconventional sort of romance.  The quirky part is that the search for true love is not a love for our heroine, Mackenzie, but for her mum.  Mac is living unhappily with her boyfriend.  Unhappy, it seems, because they are seeing way too much of her Mum, Eleanor. Eleanor is bossy, rude and has an annoying yap dog, but no car.  In order to free themselves from the company of Eleanor and regain some intimacy, Mackenzie decides to find her mom's true love.Thus thru a ridiculous series of first dates, Mackenzie meets almost every possible type of romantic interests for her mom: the rich, the unemployed, the rude, the farmer, the nice, and the gross.  One or two make it to a first date with Eleanor, but still no luck.  Turns out, she still has a flame for someone, and she is not sharing whom with her daughter.  Without giving away the plot, I think I can say there is a satisfying ending as all good romances do have.Kismetology is not a boilerplate type of story.  The plot is believable and moves right along.  I almost wouldn't call it a romance, except that it is all about relationships.  Apart from the stream of men that Mackenzie interviews, the characters are all real people.  Her boyfriend, Daniel, a chef, is at times understandably short tempered with this continuous onslaught of middle age men.  Her best friend from work, Jenni, is supportive and offers advice and assistance.  Strangely, Eleanor the mum, who is a yoga instructor, seems weirdly oblivious to the trouble she is causing.The funniest part of the book is the description of all the men.  Amusing, because I think we have all dated at least a few of these guys ourselves.  The author's descriptions are quite realistic; I bet Jaimie Admans has dated a few of them too.