Always Will
This lighthearted romantic comedy pushes its self-assured female protagonist down a constantly twisting path toward adulthood.
Having a crush on an older sibling’s best friend is practically a right of passage for teens. The problem for Hannah is that, at twenty-five, the crush hasn’t gone away, and the man in question has just announced his intention to find himself a wife. Clearly, drastic measures need to be taken, in Melanie Jacobson’s lighthearted romantic comedy Always Will.
When Hannah was seventeen, she confessed her feelings to Will, only to have them laughed off. Now she’s all grown up with a great career, a nice apartment, and a fabulous wardrobe. Of course, she also still has her ridiculous crush, exacerbated by the fact that Will lives three apartments down and the two spend nearly all of their free time together. But things are fine, at least until Will informs Hannah he’s going to seriously start looking for “the one.” Hannah knows he’s her one, but she also knows he sees her only as his best friend’s kid sister. For Hannah, this is a situation where desperate times call for desperate measures.
So begins Hannah’s two-pronged attack: game Internet dating sites to make sure Will only goes on truly awful dates while forcing him to finally see her as the grown woman she’s become. Easier said than done when you stopped emotionally maturing at seventeen.
Always Will is as much a coming-of-age story as it is a romance as Jacobson leads her protagonist down a constantly twisting path toward adulthood. Hannah is a refreshing and compelling lead character with a great sense of self, coming across as confident, sassy, and comfortable in who she is: “Intelligent. It irritated me when people didn’t want to own that about themselves. Why was it bragging to acknowledge that you were smart but okay to say you were spontaneous? It was kind of ridiculous.” With plenty of pop-culture references thrown in, this is a romance sure to entertain.
Reviewed by
Allyce Amidon
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