ALA Booklist (Wed Jul 05 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In Rabess' thought-provoking debut, opposites attract, but is love enough to conquer their fundamental differences in an increasingly polarized political landscape? It's 2012, and new college grad Jess Jones is starting her career at Goldman Sachs when she is reintroduced to former classmate Josh Hillyer. Josh, who is white and hails from a posh neighborhood in Connecticut, is styled as a wunderkind on the rise, while Jess, who is Black and moved to New York City from Nebraska, can barely get her coworkers to acknowledge that she is not a diversity hire. Being the only Black person in the room has always made her feel like an outsider, while she yearns to fit into a world that keeps questioning her presence. Years pass, and their relationship evolves, but the 2016 election is looming, and while their divergent political views may seem insurmountable, they're still drawn to each other, for good or for ill, despite the world demanding that they be enemies, not lovers. An intriguing cliffhanger makes this an excellent pick for book clubs that enjoy rousing debate.

Kirkus Reviews

A romance between a Black woman and a White man unfolds in an ever more polarized world.Josh Hillyer and Jessica Jones, both gifted students and math prodigies, meet at college on the day of Obama's election when each is interviewed about the historic event. "I'm not convinced that now is the right time to entrust another tax and spend liberal with the economy," says Josh, to Jess' disgust, and the two will continue to disagree on everything every time they meet. She pins him as a boring preppie; he loves to push her buttons. Their sparky dynamic continues when both are hired by Goldman Sachs, where he is an overnight sensation and she is an angry outsider, mistaken for admin staff even when she tops the leaderboard. Rabess' fascinating, complicated, discussionworthy debut follows the pair through the day of Trump's inauguration, offering a nuanced and provocative treatment of the operation of race and politics in an intimate relationship. It would be easy to label this book an enemies-to-lovers rom-com of the Hepburn-Tracy genus, but that doesn't capture the unconventional aspects of Rabess' depiction of her characters. Flummoxed by Josh's interest (is it "jungle fever," as one of his friends suggests?), Jess proceeds on impulse. Rabess' snappy writing captures Jess' reaction to her desire for Josh: "She feels like one of those patients with an alcoholic anesthesiologist who gets the dosage wrong, so that even though they are meant to feel nothing, they end up feeling everything and can only lay in excruciating silence while their nerve endings erupt." The author never allows us to completely dismiss Josh, a true believer in meritocracy and the market economy-though since we don't get inside his head, it's not clear why his devotion to Jess never inspires him to see the world through her eyes. Though the pacing is a bit frustrating in the last third of the book, don't put it down. You cannot fully understand the meaning of the title until the last page.A hot book on a hot topic, well worth reading and arguing about.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Rabess delivers a breezy yet unsettling debut about a liberal Black financial analyst who falls in love with a white Republican coworker. It’s the middle of the Obama years and Jess Jones, newly hired at Goldman Sachs, runs into Josh Hillyer, an old college classmate with whom she used to argue over politics. To her surprise, they slowly become friends despite his conservative views as he mentors her and helps her navigate office politics as the only Black woman in the firm. Eventually, Josh leaves Goldman to work at a big-time trader’s AI-powered firm, and he brings Jess along with him. Sparks inevitably fly between Jess and Josh as they try to work out their drastically different outlooks and backgrounds. Secrets are revealed, Jess gets in trouble with the boss, and everything comes to a head as the 2016 election approaches, building to a conclusion that lands as either shallowly romantic or an incendiary critique of capitalism, depending on the reader’s interpretation. Rabess’s humor is on-point, and the chemistry between the leads is electric; each scene involving them is fraught with a double-edged sword—after they hook up, Josh starts talking dirty and Jess responds, “Way to ruin the moment, you creepy loser,” before they have sex again. This is sure to spark conversation. (June)