Swoonworthy rom-com! I loved it so much! Kate and Ben could give Hepburn and Tracy a run for their money in the witty dialogue department. I will recommend this book to everyone! Hopefully this debut novel is not the last for Devon Daniels.

Not a choice for inclusion. At this time, and in this climate it just felt very disingenuous. Perhaps in a less heated climate and not during an election year it wouldn’t feel as politically motivated. Well written and strong plot.

This is a fun read with really strong banter and some good steam. However, I felt it was kind of difficult to let go of the strong political differences between the two. The ending felt like it tied things up a little too quickly in a way I'm not sure I fully believe.

A perfect rom-com read. The banter between the two MCs is great. It's a fast-paced, fun read, perfect for a day at the beach. Some people found that the book was tone-deaf due to the political situation we are in now, seeing as the author makes it seem like you can simply meet in the middle with your political views, but I don't think the was the real purpose behind this book. I think it leaned more toward being a romance than being a political-statement book. So if you are looking for that in a book, this is not the one for you. But, a light hearted romance with some quick, witty banter? This is it!

Meet You in the Middle is an enjoyable romantic comedy centered on the enemies to lovers journey of Congressional staffers Kate and Ben. Coming from opposite sides of the political spectrum, the pair's rocky road to love might have been easier to buy had the author re-imagined the setting in a fictional administration. In any case, Daniels believably sets up a scenario where political opposites can find common ground. The slow build of their relationship allows time for personal growth on both sides. Kate is smart, funny, and strong while Ben is thoughtful, protective and caring. For fans of The Hating Game, Meet You in The Middle is a fun read filled with layered characters, terrific sexual tension and witty dialogue.

This irresistible rom-com right here is EXACTLY what America needs right now!!! I’m telling you, friends. I devoured it!!! You’ll be voting so hard for lovable Democrat Kate and dreamy Republican Ben, you will not know what hit you. As up-and-coming DC staffers for opposing senators, Ben and Kate are the perfect rivals. Or are they the perfect pair?! I loved their banter, I loved their slow burn, I loved their touching backstories. Devon Daniels, your whip-smart voice, multi-layered characters and brilliant treatment of politics really knocked this one to the stars for me. MYITM is creative, it is inspiring, it is a blast. Hot, hilarious, heartwarming, genius—I even cried real tears at the end. For those who like to know, there is one super-sexy open-door scene at the end. The only downside? You have to wait for this book to release! Pre-order available via Amazon! Thank you so much to NetGalley for my review copy!!!

I hate DNFing ARCs but honestly, this isn't it. I don't know if it is because of what is going on in the world right now or because I read Red, White and Royal Blue and this just feels like the heterosexual attempt at that, but this was bad.

I didn't like the writing. I wanted to attempt to read something about conservatives but it really just did not hit at all.

I really don't have anything constructive to say as I feel I need to read the whole thing to say something substantial, so sadly this is where this ends.

DNF.
I was personally hoping for a more "Scandal" vibe type of book, and it was just too Feminist forward for me.

I was hoping for a West Wing vibe political romance. This was way more rom-com then political. In fact it was clear that politics was merely the background for this romance. The main characters were okay but honestly it made me cringe. There were a lot of things that detracted from the book and it had a lot of elements that made me less than pleased. All in all, it was an okay romance that did not meet my expectations.

I understand that this book might not be everyone's cup of tea, but holy smokes it scratched an itch I can usually only get from reading Veep fanfiction. Devon Daniels made me think a *republican* was hot. She's basically a wizard.
This was a cute, fluffy read and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes romcoms and the hate-to-love angle. I plan on buying a copy myself because I know I'm going to want to reread it soon.

Devon Daniels' writing is superb. I know this book has some controversy given the current political climate, but I think it's a reminder to think of people as individuals and not make blanket statements based on political affiliations.

I need more of these types of enemies-to-lovers books in my life. As soon as I started, I couldn't put it down. I can relate completely to Kate's personality-type, and I was smitten with Ben. Please more books by Devon Daniels!!

I couldn’t finish this. This felt so tone-deaf considering everything going on in the world today. The idea that you can just “meet someone in the middle” when it comes to political views feels so privileged to me. I had hopes this would be a good read but the male character specially made me so annoyed, and it just wasn’t cute or romantic at all.

I knew going into this that it wouldn’t be great, but I was very hopeful that maybe the Republican character could see the harm they were putting into the world. He did not. Conservative women are going to eat up this book. There are some funny moments, particularly when Kate sends Ben a tampon through interoffice mail and he dumps it on his desk in front of everyone. That made me chuckle. And the writing style is decent. But the content of this book is harmful. You can’t have a book that purports to meet in the middle when it’s so far to the right, the middle is on another planet.

I thought that this would be a book that tackled the divisions of partisanship; a story that pointed out that you can’t know everything about someone by their party affiliation. I thought it might be a book where a stubborn man changes his ways after having his eyes opened by a passionate woman and her experiences.
Instead, I got: “ideological differences are okay in a relationship as long as you have similar personalities.” I could have sworn opposites attract meant extroverts and introverts, or Marvel fans and DC fans, not having different ideas on gun control. But go off, I guess.
What we get is: “Kate, you can’t hate me just because I’m a Republican! Look at how nice I am!” And it’s true. Ben is painted as a literal saint. He is good at math, good at dancing, good at his job, kind, honorable, and funny. Ben is also insanely overprotective in a way that I couldn’t decide was romantic or creepy; then I realized the fact that I had to ask that question gave me a very clear answer. I feel like the only reason Ben got away with any of this was because he was good-looking.
Of course, it’s not reasonable to hate someone just based on their party affiliation. But the party that you’re affiliated with says a lot about your values. If Ben truly doesn’t fit the mold of a Republican, we need to see exactly how he doesn’t. For a book based on political differences, Kate and Ben never actually discuss any politics. We do not actually get to hear Ben’s perspective on anything except tax reform, on which we are just supposed to trust him because he’s “good at math.” He believes in gun freedom because he … used guns to vent out his anger after his sister was attacked. Yes, you read that right.
This idea, that political differences are minor, stings badly. Even if politics is not your whole life, it is very difficult to build a meaningful relationship with someone who cannot match your core values. And for people who are actively working to change policy? It definitely seems like a deal breaker. This isn’t to say that they need to agree on everything, but the end goal should be the same, even if the proposed solutions are different.
To Ben, this is “just a job.” He thinks he can make this relationship work because their differences are mainly based in work. But politics is not just a job. His policies on tax reform and child care affect so many people’s lives. Anyone that has been in public school in the last ten years knows how important gun control is. I’ve felt it, every time I’ve had to cower under a desk for a code red drill. I’ve felt it, every time a school shooting came up on the news: that could have been us. Anyone who is trying to build a life in the next fifty years knows how drastic climate change is. I’ve felt it, every year when half of California catches on fire and the smoke is so thick you can’t breathe. Having differences on these topics is irreconcilable. It is not just “different ways of solving the same problem.” It’s an issue of values.
Kate is fiery and passionate, while politics is just a job to Ben. He thinks that Kate is close-minded because she refuses to fraternize with the opposition. In reality, these issues are very important to her, and she doesn’t want to spend time with people who think otherwise. Honestly, this seems absolutely reasonable. The only way that this book could have worked is if Ben turned out to match her views or changed his mind. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t. She just gets won over by his “godly green eyes.”
This doesn’t sit right with me. The idea of a strong, independent, hardworking woman deciding that she can compromise with someone who doesn’t believe in the very ideas that she’s built her entire life on is … appalling. Kate is also,, kind of annoying. She is so unclear about her own life, so unnecessarily rude to Ben, and so nasty to other women. Basically, it plays out like a damsel in distress story, and Ben swoops in to save her, despite her protests that she doesn’t need to be saved. I can’t get behind it, though, because it kind of feels like Kate was right in the beginning. Ben is an unrealistic character, and it feels like Kate’s inherent flaws are over exaggerated in order to undermine the moral high ground of liberals.
Kate and Ben, on their own, make a passable love story. But the political angle makes this a hard no.

If you think in the year of our lord 2020 I'm going to be excited and promote a book about a Nice White Lady liberal who realizes the rich, conservative is her perfect match you have another thing coming. Awww, isn't it sweet how he rolls his sleeves up to his forearms while forcing Americans to go out and vote during a pandemic? Oh yes, please keep your machine gun to protect your sister from future dates rapes!

No thank you. This is irresponsible and harmful on so many levels, especially considering the "both-sides" nonsense. If one side is okay with locking up children in cages, allowing white protestors to storm state capitols with assault weapons so they can have haircuts, and murder black people on live video with no consequence, there is no both sides.

Keep it.

I could not put this book down. I loved the characters, and I loved the character development. While I am Canadian, I lean very left on the political spectrum, so I really identified with the conflict of Kate, because I have always thought I could not be with someone on the right. What I liked is that Ben was a more traditional republican, not whatever the right is now. It was a great example of how bipartisan politics can work, and that love is greater than politics.

This book sounds like just another romcom--we know how it begins and we know how it ends and knowing the professions and setting of the two main characters we can even guess the middle. But, the dialog between Ben and Kate is brilliant. It is sharp and crisp and always caused a smile or a tear depending on where it was in the book. I only wish I that I could think of retorts to what people say to me as easily and as profound as they do to each other. Yes, it was a quick read, but a pleasurable one.

In this enemies-to-lovers, slow-burn contemporary romance, we meet political rivals Kate Adams and Ben Mackenzie, who sit across the aisle on Capitol Hill yet have a heck of a time bantering, debating back and forth and boy do the sparks fly. The language is authentic and relatable, so engaging that you just want to keep reading, as from the get-go they have quick-witted, feisty, and playful banter and so many sparks. This banter is so endearing and I love it! So much. It doesn't feel like a chore to keep reading, I *want* to because I'm desperate to see where the story goes. I'm super into this enemies-to-lovers story; it's very cute and fun with all this banter. I can't put it down and end up finishing it in a single setting. I already cannot wait to reread again and again, because I definitely need to just to relive this romance book magic. It's so captivating with such descriptive language that you get into Kate's head. Beneath all the descriptive language and steamy emotions, this book has a tremendous amount of heart and is quite endearing of a story. So, while nothing steamy or romantic happened for most of the book, their slow-burn romance has so much passion and heat I just craved more. If it's a book that I cannot physically put down until I finish, even if it's way past midnight, and I just need to keep reading -- that's a huge winner from me. It's a charming opposites-attract romance set in the head-to-head world of politics and I just don't want it to end! Then, things their relationship gets all-consuming and passionate and I'm hooked, obsessed. Seeing Ben fight for her nearly makes me cry and I feel so many emotions, as a good book should. It's such a sweeping ending and it all feels right, earned, justified, and authentic. I don't know, this book has something about it: I've never read a romance quite like this one and that's perhaps why I liked it so much. The whole book is from Kate's perspective, so it's only fair for the epilogue to capture Ben's side of things. This book's slow burn was timed exactly perfect and I was hooked from the start. The only thing that disappointed me was the lack of diversity and representation: the two main characters were conventionally beautiful people as well as matching intellectually and sharing similar values. But other than that, wow, I loved it. It's one of my favorite new romances I've read this year, and I can't get the story out of my head; I just need to reread over and over again.

Special thanks to Berkley for providing our copy in exchange for an honest & fair review.

Lots of reviews coming in for this book. While I certainly don't make a habit of writing reviews for books I don't enjoy, I'm making an exception.

I started by reading the author's note. While this could (and likely is) a divisive book, I wanted to get a feel for the author's intentions. Based on the 2016 election, she was inspired to write a romance starring a couple from each side of the political aisle. My opinion is a romance set within the current discord of our political climate has little chance of working as an escape as a love story across the aisle. Still, I'm hopeful Daniels can make it work.

My thoughts

1. I don't like either character. The hero & the heroine are thinly veiled caricatures of the "typical" Liberal & Conservative. What really irks me here is we only get her (the liberal's) viewpoint for the vast majority of the story. She comes across as whiny, weak & clueless. Good thing she as this big caveman of a character to help set her straight. How dare she walk home without a gun? Doesn't she know how she comes across when trying to deliver legislation to a representative's office? Good thing she has this big strong conservative Texas man to help her see the error of her ways. (cue the eye roll)

2. This book is not based in reality. Now, hear me out. That usually doesn't bother me. Yet, when you're using our current political climate as your setting, we have to be real about things. If this was based in 2000 or 2008 or 2015, fine. The hero (as well as the author) makes the assumption that political parties are simply a "difference of opinion". For me, this does not reign true. Many political differences stem from differing morals, ideals & values. Now, had the author opened up the dialogue between the characters to truly discuss some of the long, hard & difficult discussions that people of differing ideals have, we may have a totally different story here. Yet, she skims the surface. She treats each party's decision as flippant. This just doesn't sit well with me. It's not believable, authentic & a real missed opportunity.

3. The love story doesn't work. Take out the politics & let's dissect the love story. It's a no from me. Our heroine has all the makings & descriptions of a strong, ideological feminist, but she sure throws it all out the window for a man who loves to argue and wants to have hate sex. She's not comfortable around guns, but they have an outing/date at a gun range. Guess what? He gets an erection & she is just fawning all over him. Then they have their first kiss - at a gun range. (eye roll again)

4. This story feels like it's definitely geared towards a more conservative-leaning audience. I head back to the author's note again. She wanted to write a story that "both sides" could enjoy. I'm sad to say I don't really think she achieved that. We see this through the heroine's actions & verbiage. As she argues or attempts to defend her ideals to the hero, his rebuttal is condescending & rooted in a sense that she is the one who should cross the aisle not him. She's the one not making great decisions & acting on emotion while he is stable, rooted & able to sweep in & rescue her. For me, it definitely has a feel of, these crazy liberals just need to see things from our side.

5. Bottom line - decide for yourself. If you enjoy it, that's great. It does have some open door romance towards the end. Overall, the story didn't work for me.