It seems like our friend, aka Forest Gump, aka Scott Turner, aka Tom Hanks has been in the news a lot lately. He was the first major celeb to come down with the dreaded virus - in Australia, no less. And I recently read that Mr. Hanks was kind enough to donate his blood or platelets or antibodies or whatever it is that will help doctors create a vaccine to save the rest of us. While this was happening, by chance I looked over at my massive To Be Read pile (you know you have one too) and saw this title innocently sitting there, waiting for me to find him.
It’s nice when art imitates life.
So the first thing you need to know is that this book is NOT about Tom Hanks. It’s about Annie Cassidy. Annie Cassidy is a fan of rom-coms - specifically Nora Ephron movies like Sleepless in Seattle or You’ve Got Mail. Both of which star—you guessed it—one Mr. Tom Hanks. To be fair, I’m more of a Nancy Meyers girl, but I can get behind the magic of any romantic comedies.
When a movie starts filming in her town, Annie is lucky enough to land a job as assistant to the director. There she meets all kinds of swoony fellas. Perhaps one of them is romantic enough to be her Tom Hanks and ride off with her into the sunset on his houseboat.
As a long time connoisseur of rom-coms, I liked how meta this one was. Not only is Annie waiting for her own Tom Hanks, and working on the set of a romantic comedy, but she’s also writing a screenplay about her best friend and her best friend’s boss, neither of whom have figured out that they love each other. All the cliches are there, but they are presented for exactly what they are and are laughed at by the characters in the book.
Highly enjoyable read. Plus then it spawned a Rom-Com Watch-a-Thon, featuring The Proposal, Wimbledon, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Hitch. There is also supposed to be a sequel coming out any day now called Not Like the Movies, so keep an eye out for that.
And now I have a question for you — is Tom Hanks the new Kevin Bacon?
I’m ok if he is - just wondering.
Happy rom-comming…
:) Amanda
