Witty Banter and Unexpected Romance: When Grumpy Met Sunshine

When Grumpy Met Sunshine by Charlotte Stein

The author does an excellent job of establishing Alfie as the quintessential grump and Mabel as the embodiment of sunshine within the first chapter.

By page 10, I was laughing out loud at Alfie's struggle to figure out smartphones. Capturing my attention within the first 15 pages is always a good sign, and this book definitely did that!

Alfie is stubborn and set in his ways, while Mabel matches his stubbornness with her radiant positivity. Alfie's antics are downright hilarious—he wrote a script to talk to her and accidentally admitted it, and there's even a scene where he violently shakes a plant because it failed to hide him properly.

A standout moment is when Mabel pepper sprays Alfie, thinking he was stalking her. I couldn't stop laughing! Mabel’s observation that Alfie was as practical as someone's grandad from a miserable mining town perfectly captures his character. He even accidentally commits a cybercrime.

Although the story occasionally slows down, it quickly picks up again. One particularly amusing moment is when Alfie resorts to using Twitter to contact her. The third-act breakup and miscommunication felt a bit unnecessary, and Mabel's confession seemed out of character. Despite these minor issues, the book's humour is exceptional, and the witty banter is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny.

A quote that stood out to me; “You are lovely, Mabel. And not just lovely in your soul, neither. No, I mean Lovely like a painting of someone important from a long time ago, reclining on some fancy thing with their thighs all soft and their shoulders all round and everything so plush it makes you ache to touch it. Lovely like the bit of moorland I used to go to near me, all wild and free, with that tangle of hair down your back and those eyes that sometimes seem brown and sometimes seem green and always, always feel like they see right into you. Sharp as a knife, but so soft you hardly care if it goes in. You want it to go in. You say thank you when it does. Because Lord, it feels so good.”

3.5 🌟