Adelaide Williams is drunk when she first meets Rory Hughes.

Late that afternoon, tipsy and tanned, she saw him.

He was wearing a scarf and a blue button-down and Adelaide loved him instantly – all brown curls and razor-sharp jawline. Like a young Colin Firth.

She is compelled to waltz right up to him and tell him that he looks “like a Disney prince.“

Nothing comes of that meet cute, but several months later Rory and Adelaide match on a dating app, something she has been using for casual hook ups. She figures that this night will be no different from the string of other nights she’s recently had. It turns out though that meeting Rory again upends her world.

Genevieve Wheeler’s debut Adelaide tracks the titular character’s time in London where she is first finishing her Master’s and then working. Their first date and first kiss lights a fire inside Adelaide and “in her memory, standing on that street corner, the sky was bright. Birds chirping, clouds parted, sun shining. It’s painfully clichéd, but darkness didn’t exist here, not in this little universe Adelaide entered when she first kissed Rory Hughes.”

At twenty-six, Adelaide is navigating young adulthood. She has her roomies, Celeste and Madison, and her stateside best friend, Eloise. Rory, perfect Rory, is – she is sure – her soul mate. Except, you know, he’s not. He’s got a lot of baggage and it turns out he’s not the best boyfriend. It’s one of those “all that glitters is not gold” situations; when he’s with her, it’s impossible not to feel the heady thrall, but he often disappears or breaks plans; he’s emotionally unavailable.

I am not 26, but I sure understood Adelaide. Her relationship with Rory mimicked many of my own twenty-something relationships which required a lot of work on my behalf, a lot of subjugating my own feelings in service to others, mostly because I was always choosing the wrong others. Adelaide’s fumbling wasn’t frustrating to me; it was relatable.

This is a book about loving someone else fiercely, but ultimately learning that the person most deserving of that sort of care and attention is actually yourself.

Loved it.