I lost the plot a bit because the reality show wasn’t all that interesting to me, and it both seemed kinda like a confusing afterthought but also too present lol. While is touching on serious issues like coming out and body positivities it also has zero angst and that somehow takes the story on a too good to be true path for me. Higgins is just a girl from Texas who has made it her mission to create stories in which sassy, southern Black women are loved out loud. She has her share of insecurity though, and I liked that, I like that she’s not all stud and no personality.

Obviously in Romancelandia we are opening our minds and hearts to things that prooobably would not happen in real life. The romance was nice, but the premise of the book, the way they needed to convince their family that they were in love and will be married made me really uncomfortable. If they pull off the deception and make it to the altar, they can choose to either accept prize money or get married for real. i’ve never went through the difficulty of hiding parts of myself out of fear of losing my family but i think chencia did a beautiful job with explaining d’vaughn’s story to the readers.

When she isn't hunkered down in her writing cave, Chencia can be found with her nose in a book (or two, or three), saving recipes on Pinterest for things she’ll never make, and traveling as much as possible with her family. She’s sort of neglected to come out to her mom for years, so a big splashy fake wedding is just the excuse she needs.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book this fast but once I started I could not stop until the very end! But I do think it might have added something to see more of D’Vaughn and Kris standing strong against something. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. D’Vaughn hopes being on the show will help her come out to her family, Kris hopes to find true love.Higgins gives world-weary readers looking for an inclusive and thoroughly enjoyable escape exactly what they need .