How to Get a Life in 10 Dates

In How to Get a Life in Ten Dates (publication date December 10, 2024), I loved meeting Jenny L. Howe’s newest characters–Haleigh and Jack–who live in the same world with some of the same characters from Howe’s first two books–On The Plus Side and The Make-Up Test.

Twenty-five year olds Haleigh and Jack have been friends since second grade, and except for a vacation fling that almost ended their friendship, have been only that–best friends. Both struggle with anxiety in different ways, and Haleigh is a fat writer and editor who freelances while also walking dogs, feeling like she can’t ever catch up to the perfect life her older sister, Joey, has.

She enlists her family and friends to set her up on ten dates, since they seem to think meeting someone and beginning a relationship is so easy. After some doozies, she meets Brian, a veterinarian, and things seem to be going well. But Jack hasn’t set his dates for her yet, and she still has a place for him in her heart even though he hurt her badly after their fling years ago.

I enjoyed it, and thought Howe dealt with the characters’ anxiety sensitively and accurately. I loved the fact that Haleigh was fat, and that she appreciated Jack’s fat body as well. I loved that Haleigh was queer, dating either men or women (assuming she would date nonbinary folks as well), and that this was seen as normal without any further explanation. I loved that there were additional queer characters. Howe also does a good job with her author’s note, explaining why she uses the word “fat” in a neutral way, and loved that the characters really don’t experience anti-fat bias during the events of the book. The terrible dates Haleigh goes on are not terrible because her dates are anti-fat–dating is just hard.

My only criticism is that Jack, as a character, could have been fleshed out a little more. All we know is that they’ve been friends essentially their whole life, that he loves to read like Haleigh, that he does something with computers, they play racing games together, and that he also has anxiety. It would have been nice to have some chapters from his perspective, because it was hard to figure out what made him tick. Nevertheless, I still really enjoyed it.