I’m trying to broaden my horizon regarding the books I read. Almost all of my romances have been m/f, not because that’s what I necessarily enjoy reading, but it’s the most common type of romance. After browsing through Goodreads, I stumbled upon Meet Cute Club, a gay romance with a Southern small-town setting. Meet Cute Club was a great read.

Jordan Collins adores romance books! He runs the Meet Cute Club, a romance-themed book club. As he’s shopping for books, he meets Rex Bailey, who’s snarky and doesn’t understand Jordan’s passion for reading romance novels. Rex surprisingly shows up at Meet Cute Club and begins to help Jordan grow the club. Romance and a steamy hookup ensue, leaving Jordan and Rex in a daze about whether they belong together.

As far as the actual romance, Jordan and Rex are perfect together! I was rooting for them as I think they balance each other out. Jordan is passionate about his love for romance and breaks down Rex’s hard exterior. Rex grew up in a tumultuous family background with his philandering father, which caused him to be a bit stubborn about the idea of love. I thought these two had great chemistry together.

Meet Cute Club centers upon Jordan and Rex’s relationship, along with a dialogue regarding masculinity. In some ways, Jordan defies masculine stereotypes and has been bullied. Jordan felt pressure at a young age to sign up for sports, even though all Jordan wanted was to read romance. Although Rex appears as the “stereotypical masculine man”, even he abandoned some of this to show Jordan that he loved him. I thought that the core of this story was this discussion of masculinity and how men don’t have as much freedom to explore various hobbies or interests that women do.

Meet Cute Club was a jovial read as I was genuinely rooting for Jordan and Rex to get together. I rated Meet Cute Club as three and a half stars, rounded up to four on Goodreads.