You Deserve Each Other

You Deserve Each Other centers on the challenges of cultivating a healthy, long-term, romantic partnership beyond initial attraction and infatuation. It’s fundamentally a story about how relationships fall apart when the participants expect positive outcomes without putting in the work to achieve them. By introducing Nicholas and Naomi on their second date—a couple poised to start a heartfelt, meaningful relationship—and then flashing forward more than a year to find Nicholas and Naomi engaged, resentful, and each looking for a way out of their upcoming marriage, Hogle invites the reader to discover what happened to them and whether their relationship can be saved. Using a humorous lens consistent with the romantic comedy genre, Hogle roots Nicholas and Naomi’s central conflicts in poor communication. Their inability to communicate their expectations leads to silent assumptions that provoke resentment and frustration when they aren’t met. 

The lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers trope that Hogle employs gives her a structural framework to illustrate the destructive impact of poor communication on Nicholas and Naomi’s relationship as well as the ways that improving their communication allows their connection to heal and thrive. For example, when Naomi stalls Leon’s car in Chapter 9, she calls Nicholas despite her assumption that he won’t leave his mom to come help her.