By Gabrielle Kroeger

“Weather Girl” by Rachel Lynn Solomon (“We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This”) is a romantic comedy that follows main character Ari Abrams, a weather girl for a Seattle news station. Ari loves everything about her job, except for one thing: her boss, Torrance Hale, who will not stop fighting with her ex-husband, the station’s news director, Seth Hale. After a particularly bad incident at the faculty Christmas party, Ari teams up with the station’s sports reporter, Russell Barringer, to try and mend their bosses’ relationship. Through working together to fix this issue, chemistry starts to build between Ari and Russell.

This book includes many tropes popular among romance novels, including grumpy/sunshine, workplace romance, helping another with an injury, forced proximity and the one bed trope as well as the single dad trope. This is also one of the first romance books where the love interest was not described as having a perfect body. Russell is described as having what many people call a “dad bod.” It was a nice surprise when the author mentioned that Russell was a bigger guy because of the lack of body diversity in books, especially in the romance genre.

​Not only does “Weather Girl” include plus-sized representation, but it also has two Jewish main characters. Both Ari and Russell are Jewish, and we see their work being non-inclusive by having a Christmas party with one Hanukah decoration. It is assumed they will work on Christmas because they don’t celebrate it. On a more positive note, we see Russell’s daughter have her bat mitzvah and embrace her religion.

​Throughout the novel, we see Ari struggling with depression, which her mother also suffers from. She always puts on a very happy front, but throughout her narration, we see how she truly feels. We see Ari struggling to build relationships and open up to people because of many failed relationships in her past. Both Ari and Russell have their own issues, but we see them work through them together. Solomon did an amazing job representing the different aspects of depression and how it may affect someone’s daily life and relationships. She mentions in an author’s note that she herself struggles with depression and wanted to write this novel to shed light on the topic.

​There is very little not to like about this book, aside from one thing. Ari and Russell’s love story was a bit overshadowed by the Hales’ mending love story. The plot to get their bosses back together was what initially brought Ari and Russell together, but most of their dates were only set up to get the Hales back together. It would have been nice to see a few more scenes where it was just Ari and Russell hanging out because they wanted to, which did not happen much until the end.

“Weather Girl”​ is a very sweet and wholesome novel, but there are some mature scenes, and mature topics discussed. This book is for readers 18 and older. If talking about depression is triggering for you, read this book with caution. That being said, this book is a romantic comedy, and it was quite funny from start to finish. Ari’s inner-dialogue may make you laugh made me laugh multiple times while reading.

Image from Rachel Lynn Solomon via YouTube