Member Reviews
What an absolutely delightful book! I loved the entire ride!
Daisy and Liam are definitely going to go down as one of my favourite book couples! From the start they are imperfectly perfect for one another and their banter was top notch!
I laughed, I sighed, I awed... I loved the humour and the deeper parts that were brought up throughout the book. It helped round the characters out nicely. One of the things I enjoyed the most was how Liam was so comfortable in Daisy's culture and around traditions that a lot of people would be nervous or apprehensive about. Even though it was all for show he wanted her to get to have the experiences she wanted because they were important to her.
Sara Desai does such a great job of bringing the reader into the Desi culture. And she does it without definitions or explanations throughout the book. As a reader I so appreciate that. If I need more information, I know where to look! She also leaves me hungry after I finish reading... I am grateful I have a massive stock of Indian spices in my pantry for these times.
My one and only hangup, and I will be complaining about this for YEARS, was how during a hockey game "halftime" was brought up and I just... I cannot in good conscious ignore that. I kid of course! (or do I?!)
A fun, steamy, fantastic read!
A quick fun read that I quickly devoured. I enjoyed the characters and the love story had some of my favorite romance tropes. The enemies to lovers and fake engagement are some of my personal favorites and I loved how the author did them.
This book gave me everything I expect from a sweet rom-com book, and I was not disappointed at all. I thought the pacing was great. Any romance I can read in 24 hours is great. I put it down feeling very fulfilled at that point.
This was a cute and fun book! It had a lot of the tropes that are popular right now and it was a quick read.
I loved The Dating Plan so much!!! I literally did not want it to end. It was sweet & a little steamy! Im such a huge fan of the fake dating trope & Sara Desai did a fantastic job with this one!!! I would absolutely recommend this to all my friends & cannot wait to read more from Desai!!! The characters were lovable, the vibe of the book captures you & you just dont want this to end!! I adored it!
Fake Marriage/ Fake fiance! I'm sold!!! This was pretty fun. Great chemistry between the leads and a pretty cool plot
This was such a fun, cute, and fast read! I loves the family dynamic for Daisy and felt for Liam. I've already recommended this book to numerous friends!
The Dating Plan was, in my opinion, a super cute book. It follows Daisy Patel who is a software engineer, who is perfectly fine being single but has a million family members trying to get her to marry someone. Liam Murphy is Daisy's brother's childhood best friend, and also Daisy's childhood crush - that is, until Liam stood her up on the night of the prom, never to be seen again for ten years. Daisy runs into Liam at a work conference, with her ex-boyfriend and aunties hot on her heels. Long story short: fake dating and shenanigans ensue.
I thought this was a really sweet book. I really enjoyed it, and it had WAY more steam than I anticipated. I thought this was a pretty straightforward book, not one that had a ton of surprises. BUT I loved the characters and the fake dating trope. I will be reading more from this author!
The Dating Plan by Sara Desai
A quirky contemporary Rom-Com your heart needs.
Okay someone hurry and lets fight to make this book a movie ASAP!
This was the cutest and most hilarious fake-fiancé slash marriage of convenience book I never knew I needed.
The Dating Plan is about Daisy Patel who is a bad-ass software engineer at a really cool organic product start up. She’s all about the tech life, but when it comes to her dating life… that’s a non starter. She may proudly brag about non committal hook ups here and there, but romance and dating? Nah, not her vibe. Daisy is currently being HOUNDED by all her aunties though, I mean all of them. They go and find her wherever she is, doing whatever she may be doing to LITERALLY bring her potential husbands. The aunties and her father want her married pronto!
On the contrast Liam Murphy which happens to be Daisy’s brother’s best friend comes into town. You must know that Liam and Daisy haven’t seen each other in 10 years, ever since he left her stranded on prom night. Fast forward to NOW times, they have an awkward and hilarious 10 year reunion. Daisy totally lets him have it and demands answers for the ghosting. Liam turns on the charm and gives her none.
BAD LIAM! (But I love her verbal lashing!!)
As the book goes deeper we do see the true story why Liam bailed out on her that night. (okay, no too BAD Liam…)
Liam is in town because he has inherited the family’s distillery which is depending on a successful marriage (that must last at least one year), and bad boy-non committal Liam strikes up the great idea for him and Daisy to marry. She will get the pesky aunties off her back, he gets the distillery, everyone wins right?
Well these two butt heads all throughout this book, and we are left unsure whether this deal can truly work out.
The Dating Plan is filled with so much witty and hilarious banter between not only Daisy and Liam, but all the supporting characters. I can totally see this whole cast on film! It would have the beautiful flair of Indian and Asian culture, with the hilarity of the show New Girl, mixed with the wedding drama of Crazy Rich Asians. I mean, can we cut the debate and just get The Dating Plan on film please?
I am giving The Dating Plan by Sara Desai 4 Stars! It has all the key elements in a Rom-Com that will cause lots of fun conversations in a book club or buddy read. I highly recommend this book!
To purchase The Dating Plan click here!
So here's my review; while I enjoyed this story with all the aunties running around trying to make sure that Daisy doesn't end up an "old-maid", funny banter and some of hot moments, it never reached that wow factor for me.
To be honest I didn't like Liam at the beginning when I learned what happened 10 years before. She made him work for it but I felt that she let go of her anger a bit too soon.
Overall they were a cute couple to get to know but as said i wanted a bit more from both of them so that's why this is getting a 3.5* rating.
***Review copy requested and reviewed on behalf of OMGReads Blog***
Oh my!!!! This book was great! It had me from the cover alone! It was sweet, perfect, lovely and all things romance!!! This couple pulled on my heart strings through the whole book. This is a must read of the year!!! Great setting and characters and I cannot wait to read more from this author.
The Dating Plan is a delight.
This is my first time reading a book by Sara Desai but it won't be my last. I loved the tight-knit Indian-American community, the broody hero, and the nerdy but confident heroine, and the white-hot chemistry. Plus, fake marriage is one of my all-time favorite tropes.
This was adorable! I loved it and have recommended it to so many of my friends. It was filled with quirkinesses and romance. I laughed so much and could not put this one down.
I love a good rom com, especially when it involves the fake dating trope. In this follow up to The Marriage Game, Daisy, a software engineer, runs into her childhood crush, Liam, a venture capitalist, at a pitching session. Liam needs a wife to ensure an inheritance and Daisy wants to get her family off her back about marriage. How could a fake engagement go wrong? I really enjoyed this one. I loved the interaction between Daisy and her family and how Liam tried to regain her family's trust. Desai's writing is improving with each book. I do recommend you read Marriage Game first, although it's not a requirement. However, that book will be spoiled if. you read it after this. This would make a great beach read!
For Daisy, Liam is the one that got away/ran away/disappeared. When they reconnect at a work conference, they realize a fake relationship could be the answers to all their problems. A fake fiancé gets Daisy’s meddling aunties of her back, and a marriage of convenience means that Liam will get his inheritance. Daisy devices a “dating plan” - or a list of dates they need to go on in order to legitimize their relationship. However, Daisy and Liam soon discover there might be a real connection somewhere in the fake relationship.
I love a “second chance” romance more than I probably should (especially when both parties are pining), and this one was so good. Daisy and Liam have such a fun relationship - even when they are dealing with serious issues. I really enjoyed the first book in the series, The Marriage Game, and I liked The Dating Plan just as much. (I also can’t wait for The Singles Table!)
Thanks to @NetGalley and Berkley for my ARC! I also got this as my January Book of the Month pick, and I regret not reading it earlier!
As much as I enjoyed the story, I felt like it was missing something. Sara Desai does know how to write loveable and relatable characters. This story was sweet and funny!
I thought that this was such a fun read! It was such a unique take on the fake fiancé trope, and I think it was done in a way that was done so well. I really enjoyed the fact that in this book we not only had sweet and spicy love, diverse characters, family interactions and layers, as well as the fact that each character seemed to have their own storylines and life outside of just being with each other. The diversity in this book just made me so happy. I think that as a reader it is so amazing to read a book that is so well done and does not feel strongly stereotyped at all. It is hard to find a romance book that I not only like, but enjoy reading and find to be believable, but this is a case where I was able to find both. I was also pleasantly surprised by the heat level of this book, the cover seems so sweet and cute but the author certainly knows how to write a sex scene haha. All in all I think that this book was unexpected, fun, really well done, and I enjoyed having the chance to be able to read it. I really appreciate you allowing me to read as it quickly turned into one of my favorite romances that is perfect for the summer! It also made me nostalgic because I grew up in the bay area so that was just an added bonus:) I also loved how Liam never tried to water Daisy down or change her. I think even though their relationship was complicated, it was also one that you could clearly feel the love.Overall, just an amazing book that I will for sure be recommending!
First of all.... Have I been living under a rock? How have I not read The Marriage Game yet? I'm now sitting here trying to rearrange my extremely long TBR pile to sneak it into my future reads ASAP.
Have you read The Dating Plan yet?
I loved this one and can not believe it's over! Is there going to be a sequel to this one now to continue on with Daisy and Liam?
I’m not someone who reads a lot of adult romance, but when I saw that The Dating Plan had both a desi character and the fake dating trope, I just *had* to grab the galley PRH sent me! While this book did not blow my mind, it did keep me thoroughly entertained, so there’s that, I guess!
So we have Daisy Patel, a software engineer who is something of a butterfly. Like, literally. Her constants in life are her dad, her little home and her need to not have anything else be the same. She has her issues, one could say. And then we have Liam Murphy, The Bad Boy Type. You know what I’m talking about. Dean Winchester Without The Extra Dose of Trauma, if you will. He liked bikes, leather jackets, idk about his music taste but i bet it’s classic rock because like I JUST SAID, and also just, being flaky. I guess? He’s basically a super ambitious venture capitalist with “a GED and a give ‘em hell attitude” (you know, because he didn’t go to college?) (okay, i’ll stop) who’s swimming in women, apparently, but his heart has always belonged to just one person. Any guesses who?
ALRIGHT, jokes aside, what happens is Daisy’s got her family on her back about getting married because she is desi. Liam’s going to lose his family business distillery thing that he (almost) inherited from his grandfather if he doesn’t get married within, like, a couple of months, so they decide to help each other, and fake an engagement and then a marriage. Oh, just one thing? Liam stood Daisy up on her prom, and she hates his guts. But also, he’s like super hot now so...you know.
The book was just one really silly ride. I enjoyed reading it, but it was all very predictable and not emotionally intense or anything. Liam’s a dick because he has daddy issues. Daisy is a commitment-a-phobe because of Liam and her mom. Liam did The Bad Thing because, of course, something Much Worse happened to him, and he just couldn’t talk to them about it. It’s a pretty by-the-numbers romance if you ask me. Like if someone told me who these people were and asked me to point in the vague, general direction for, like, a Netflix romcom for them, this is the story I’d be pointing to. Not to say that it’s bad, but just that it’s...nothing exceptional.
The writing is fine, if a bit simplistic. The characters are really fun. I loved the relationship portrayed between Daisy and her family. I love that it’s that special brand of Insanity that is the desi household. I love how Liam makes himself a part of her world, even though, just, like, the idea of Kurkure in a white man’s hands gives me all kinds of rage issues. I also really liked Liam’s family dynamic, even if they were a bit, like, DEAR LORD, you know?
Oh, also, this book is just SO HORNY, man! Literally, these two CANNOT keep it in their pants from, like, moment #1, so that was kinda funny! And also, just, djgdshfdskjfh you know?
That being said, the last bit did take me out a little. It was just so bollywood, and I really liked it. I was expecting, like, a miscommunication trope or something else that’s common like that, but it was so much more dramatic, oh my GOD! I’d read the book just for that curveball Ms. Desai threw at me!
Overall, this book is a really fun exploration of a relationship between two kinda fucked up people. It’s not perfect, but it’s funny, it has its really soft moments, and even though it’s a little over the top (they..like..literally broke the bed, it was weird), it was also just...a nice book to curl up with and have a fun time! Would totally recommend, if you’re into the romance genre!
This book really had everything you want in a romance read — good sex, family drama, intrigue — and it even checks TWO of the common romance trope boxes (enemies to lovers and fake dating)! So what more could you want?!
I did kinda feel like it dragged in just a couple places and maybe was just a tad bit long but I think overall it was a lovely read. I thought both characters were realistic and I always enjoy a book that exposes me to cultures I'm not super familiar with.