I might have had three different sources for The Romance Revival ARC (which is atypical), which means that possibly the publisher is really pushing this one out there. But I had already heard good things about it from some of the podcasts and blogs I listen to/read that tend to read well ahead of publication, so I was happy to take it on. I mean, The Romance Revival by Christina Lauren is straight-up romance but it’s also going the way of Emily Henry’s last book (Great Big Beautiful Life), which means more women’s fiction (and in the case of Revival, even more out-there than that with a genre mash-up). I had not actually read any Christina Lauren before (though I have Tangled Up in You on my TBR shelf), but I gather from other readers that their previous stuff was more conventional. I had nothing to compare it with, and that’s probably for the better.

Cuz I love me a successful mash-up, and I thought this was mostly successful.

I also enjoyed reading it. It went down easy.

Can I just say a couple of things I didn’t love? The first is the cover. It’s an okay cover, but it has nothing to do with the story, and there was plenty of opportunity to let readers know this wasn’t just a tropical (it’s not) romance (it’s not just). How about Emery and Luca on the front, Emery in a lab coat and Luca half in bandages, a little super-handsome and a little Frankenstein’s Monster?

The second thing: the title. “Revival” evokes several things, but none of them is “reanimation” or “resuscitation,” which is what they were going for (in a double-meaning sense). And for something like half the population of the US, “revival” has an overtly religious connotation. Yeah, no. How about Romance Reanimated or Romance Resuscitation, even Reviving Romance? Okay, maybe not that. But it should have been better.

Third and last major complaint: I am not a fan of romance novels where the main couple is so horny for each other and so perpetually having the best sex(-iness) of their lives, and we just have to believe it on the word of the narrator… There were reasons why Emery’s and Luca’s physical attraction worked in the story, hand-in-hand with their history and their emotional and relational bits too, but it also made most of the spicy scenes (level 3+, open door with some variety) of the book feel more clinical than anything for me, the reader. (Clinical is not the descriptor you want for your spicy scenes.) I guess I need more buildup. And maybe I need a little more reality when it comes to the way our bodies and minds and feelings and habits and… well, all of it, work together. To be fair, it almost worked here because of the amnesia thing, whereas it’s usually a complete flop for me.

What I liked most about this book—its unconventionality, the surprises—is not going to work for romance readers who don’t see it coming and whose main interest is the spice. Let me just spell it out for you: The Romance Revival is classic romance in many ways. It is also a little STEM, a little sci-fi (but, quite frankly, it was less fantastical than even the book admits, considering), and a little secret agent mystery-thriller. The main stretch through the meat of the book, however, is a more nuanced and mature piece of literature akin to women’s fiction or popular fiction. I could have done with more of the side characters in the “saggy middle” (as writers and editors call it), but other than that I was happily reading along the whole time, pleased to switch gears every once in a while.

I would recommend this read, but I would not try to sell it to someone as a conventional romance. It’s more than that. It’s about marriage and second chances and about not being a self-absorbed a-hole living more out of your own hurts than out of true love. And it’s also smart and fun with its looping in of other genres, occasionally goofy and frequently tender. I would also read it again. It’s sweet and meaningful, and interesting, and something pretty exciting for the genre. Sorry if you were just expecting more of the same, but I was entertained by something a little more risky and a little less riske.