If You Love This Romcom, Read This Romance Novel

This book unmistakably references the movie, and it inspired this entire list! If you love watching two people fall in love while trying to get their bosses together, this is the movie-book combo for you. Plus, the book has Jewish main characters, a fat male love interest, and is set in local television!

Okay, I’m recommending a historical romance novel as a comp for a contemporary romcom, but hear me out! They’re both about childhood almost-sweethearts who don’t speak for a decade and then fall madly in love as adults. There are complicated parental relationships and food that’s integral to the plot, and as a huge bonus, both book and movie are about Asian characters (Chinese British in the book, and Vietnamese American and Korean American in the movie). I am sorry to say that the book does lack a comedic Keanu Reeves appearance, but no book can be truly perfect.

Two historical recs in a row! This one might in truth be a better comp for The Mummy, but I love The Lost City in a very similar fashion to the way I love The Mummy, so I think it works.

More of a coming-of-age story with some romance than a romcom, The Half of It is one of my favorite quiet YA movies, and this book features a slow-burn romance mixed in among family secrets and a mystery, which contrast with the movie’s slow-burn friendship in the midst of an attempted Cyrano de Bergerac-ing.

Bonus rec: I was torn between this book, which I haven’t read yet but sounds amazing, and Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan, which I think works as a great comp as well!

To be fair, I don’t even know anyone who’s seen this movie, but I immediately thought of it when I read the description of this book!

In the movie, a woman can hear men’s thoughts. In the book, a woman can no longer tell lies. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know which sounds worse (to experience, not to watch/read!).

This movie and book pairing address similar situations from the opposite direction. Both star women whose lives are objectively kind of terrible, who meet a swoonworthy man and get through their tough times. Both feature ghosts, kind of. Is that a spoiler? I’m not actually sure!

Bonus rec: in a less spoiler-y way, this is also a great comp to Kiss Her Once For Me by Alison Cochran, which is quite literally a comp for the song “Last Christmas.” And as a double bonus, Kiss Her Once For Me would also work as a comp for Happiest Season.

I admit it, this one is a cheat. I’m comping them because they have the same title. But! Both are about celebrity look-alikes! (I think. I haven’t seen this movie yet!)

After a celebrity and a fan have a very public interaction, they end up dating.

Am I describing the JLo movie or the book? Yes! It’s both! And sure, they go about it differently, but they’re both loads of fun.

Both book and movie feature messy and complicated relationships among people brought together by a mutual desire to keep the person they love from dating someone else. That’s probably about where the similarities end, but don’t let that deter you!

I haven’t seen this movie or read this book, but the descriptions are absolutely indistinguishable! An Italian villa where a woman expects to be alone and pick up the pieces of her life, but it turns out a handsome stranger is also staying there. Romantic shenanigans ensue.

While Ticket to Paradise is about the divorced parents of an adult getting together to try to stop her wedding, and Before I Let Go is about divorced parents of two children who they are still actively co-parenting, I think the idea of being drawn back to the person you once loved enough to have a child is a compelling and (at least potentially!) romantic one.

While the obvious movie comp for this Meant to Be novel is, of course, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, I think By the Book excels in its depiction of a young woman whose tremendous literary talent improves a book by a man. Which is what Book of Love is about, sort of!

A free-spirited man meets his match in a buttoned-up lawyer? Yes, please! While the storylines of Boyfriend Material and Fire Island don’t have a lot in common (only one of them follows the basic plot of Pride and Prejudice, and it’s the movie), the dynamic is very similar and they’re both joyful celebrations of queerness as well as incredibly funny.

Bonus rec: the upcoming Best Men by Sidney Karger looks like it will also be a great comp!

Falling in love over email? Check! Meeting in real life by chance? Check! He figures out who she is before she realizes who he is? Also check!

Bonus rec: The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen is basically a retelling of You’ve Got Mail, but there are zombies and it’s perfect.