I stumbled across “Josh and Gemma Make a Baby” while I was searching netgalley for another book. I immediately fell for the cute cover and title, so I requested an ARC and began reading shortly after. Rom-Com is not my main genre to read, but this story seemed so refreshingly different, I had to give it a try.
Gemma, the main character, is a lonely woman. She’s single, feels unwanted and rejected for being overweight. Her new year’s resolution is to have a baby. She doesn’t want a sperm donor, so she decides to ask Josh for a favor. He is her brothers’ best friend and basically a member of her family. At first, Josh thinks Gemma is completely out of her mind for wanting his sperm. But, he changes his mind so.. Josh and Gemma make a baby.
I really enjoyed the beginning of this story, even though there were some scenes I didn’t like. Gemma gets insulted by her family the whole time for being fat and infertile. I rolled my eyes so many times and felt annoyed. Gemma is such a nice character and a lovely person in general, but her family… ugh. Josh seems to be a superficial and silly guy at first. I was pretty impressed by his deep thoughts and maturity after getting to know him better. He seems to be the perfect date for Gemma’s child – and maaaaybe a good match for her as well. But Gemma is basically dating her boss, so things get kind of confusing at times, even though this would not have been necessary. There was much banter and back and fort between Josh and Gemma – also they have a great sense of humor. On the other hand, some situations were just creepy. I don’t want to go into detail but using a phone’s vibration in a park for spicey purposes… really wasn’t expecting that (and didn’t enjoy it!).
The end of the story was pretty obvious, but I liked it. Overall, the story was nice and entertaining, even though some scenes were disturbing and annoying. I learned a lot about infertility and IVF-treatment, which I really appreciate. Infertility awareness is important! However, you might not want to read this book if infertility, miscarriage and body shaming are triggering you.
The audio book was narrated by Erin Mallon. I didn’t know her but liked her voicing from the start. She does a really good job, and I could listen to her for hours – even though I usually prefer reading myself.
