The Fixer by Jenny Holiday

Publisher: Jenny Holiday

Publication Date: September 13, 2016

If you read young adult books, you may have run across Simon and Schuster’s The Romantic Comedy series, which are basically light-hearted, sweet romantic young adult novels. The Fixer by Jenny Holiday reminds me of those books. And, yes, I do understand that college romances are now supposed to fall under the new adult category, the sweetness factor of The Fixer reminded me of that series, except for the oral sex scene, of course.

Jenny Fields is the editor of her college newspaper and she intends to leave her mark on the university. She decides her goal is to save the art building, which is the second oldest building on campus. Her ranting editorials aren’t working so she decides another approach: enlist the aid of one of the art school’s celebrated alumni and the way to do that is through the student he is mentoring, Matthew Townsend.

Matthew and Jenny don’t hit it off. She thinks he’s arrogant and selfish. He thinks she’s privileged rainbow brite. But as they get to know each other, they find that things, as they tend to be, are much deeper below the surface.

For some reason, the author of The Fixer, Jenny Holiday, decided to set the novel in 1983, her homage to the ’80’s, I guess. I’m not sure why as there is nothing singular about the story that demands placement in the ’80’s. However, I am a stickler for details and some things just leapt off the page. Hefeweizen (Widmer, first American hefeweizen, 1986, primarily west coast; didn’t really become know until ’90’s, Beer Advocate; in current times with craft beers so ubiquitous, one might forget they weren’t always around.) and Gorbachev  (didn’t become General Secretary of the USSR until 1985) were two such mentions ahead of their time. Frankly I didn’t write down others, although even “rainbow brite” was borderline since the series didn’t come out until 1984. Would a guy really have known about the Hallmark card series that came out in 1983? Doubtful.

Anyway, inaccuracies always disappointment me because it’s so very easy to check out facts with google and wikipedia–well, most facts. I won’t even begin to say that most things on the internet that are stated as fact are fact.

Overall, The Fixer is a sweet romance with the usual misunderstandings. There’s a grand gesture at the end, which is also kind of sweet. Nothing unexpected happens. The writing is good.

If you are a fan of Simon Romantic Comedies, you would probably enjoy this book. There is sex so it’s not completely Simon RC.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

From Amazon: The Fixer

rating:  (3 butterflies and a ladybug out of 5 butterflies)