HOW TO MARRY KEANU REEVES IN 90 DAYS

Friends become lovers after years of friendzoning each other in this part–road trip, part-sitcom romance.

Bethany Lu is an artist in her 40s who’s beginning to make a name for herself. Nice guy Truman Erickson is an economics professor she’s known for decades. They live in the same New York City building, belonging to Bethany's wealthy money-manager father, and they're also tied together by memories of Cole, her dead brother, who was Truman's best friend. Her high school BFF Dawn is convinced Tru and Bethany, who goes by Lu, belong together. But Lu can't handle the idea of risking her safe friendship with him, treating him with bossy familiarity. Tru has his own guilt about Cole’s passing, which has made him wary of expressing his romantic feelings for Lu. So when Lu sees the news that Keanu Reeves, her celebrity crush, is getting married and decides to track him down to change his mind, Tru offers to help though he's exasperated with her obsession. On their trips around New York and to other parts of the country, they finally end up in bed, but they still manage to avoid even the most basic communication. As the novel is told in the first person from both characters' points of view, we know they both feel more than they show, but instead of making us root for them, these glimpses into their thoughts raise doubts about their potential for adult intimacy. Jackson aims for a lighthearted road-movie feel, but the pacing and tone are uneven, zipping from episodes of zaniness to immature tiffs and self-recrimination. The fanfic-based Reeves odyssey never recedes to the background, so a quirky device meant to create forced proximity between the lovers competes with the actual relationship.

The interestingly prickly heroine's identity quest seems shoehorned into a romance with her caretaker friend.