It Had to Be You
The romantic comedy that launched the American contemporary romance scene. Phoebe Somerville inheriting an NFL team and clashing with coach Dan Calebow. SEP writes with exceptional wit and genuine emotional depth; her heroines are complicated and her heroes have to work to deserve them. The gold standard of contemporary romance.
Dan Calebow's stated view of women, that they exist for being “either made for making babies and being wives, or having sex with,” is the line reviewers quote most often when explaining why the hero curdles for them. He also doubts a woman can run a football team, sleeps with an ex within days of meeting Phoebe, and stays slow to apologize for any of it. “The men are pretty sexist, including the male protagonist,” one reader notes, and even an admirer of the book concedes “the hero was an arrogant, twisted, two-timing, misogynistic piece of shit.” Phoebe's own dumb-blonde routine to get what she wants makes some readers wince along the way, and one flags a passing description of minority characters as tone-deaf. Reviewers who forgive the era still say her turn to loving him is never quite explained on the page.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
