NOT EXACTLY WHAT I HAD IN MIND

A classic tale of miscommunication, star-crossed lovers, and artificial insemination.

When London roommates Hazel Phillips and Alfie Berghan sleep together, they make a pact that it won’t be a big deal…so of course it will be a big deal. In a poor attempt to appear casual, Alfie (harboring secret feelings for Hazel) starts talking too much about his ex-girlfriend. Hazel, also secretly smitten, decides that he’s not into her and it’s time to move on. Thus Hazel starts dating pretentious, controlling, man-bun–sporting artist Miles—who she hopes will help her with her stilted illustration career but whose wrongness for Hazel is evident to all from the start, except Hazel: “They ate voraciously, and when the bill came they split it neatly, fifty-fifty, as they always did, because bill-splitting was a core principle of feminism to which Miles, in spite of his wealth and her relative poverty and his having chosen all the food, liked strictly to adhere.” Meanwhile, Hazel’s sister, Emily, and her wife, Daria, are trying to conceive and hunting down the perfect sperm donor, but Daria has a secret: a deep, intractable phobia of pregnancy. When Emily and Daria start thinking that Alfie might be the answer to their problems, all the tension bubbling beneath the surface comes to a head. Brook’s ability to balance humor with explorations of heartbreak, anxiety, and betrayal is admirable, and while she doesn’t quite get to the meat of the story until about 200 pages in, she nonetheless provides an entertaining tale from start to finish, with characters you’ll miss right after finishing the epilogue.

Not a whole lot happens, but you’ll cling to every word.