Do I Know You by Emily Wibberly & Austin Siegemund-Broka is a pre-established romance between a married couple, Eliza and Graham, who has lost their spark and find their way back to each other through unconventional means — pretending they don’t know each other.
In Summary
The book starts out with Eliza and Graham talking past each other as they drive to their week-long vacation to celebrate their 5-year wedding anniversary. They’re not picking up on each other’s little hints and attempts at reconnection, which gives the feeling of them being almost strangers to each other. At first, it seems that Graham is the main one contributing to this atmosphere; he can’t fathom that Eliza loves him of all people and thinks she deserves better than him, which leads to self-consciousness and self-sabotage. When Eliza flirts he shuts her down, furthering the rift between them. But Eliza does this too. Eliza is the one to suggest they need space from each other and should stay in separate rooms, a decision that deeply hurts Graham, and instead of comforting him or truly saying how she’s feelings, she allows her own hurt to let her turtle and follow through with the painful decision.
Each interaction between them feels endlessly sweet, like they’re becoming more aware of each other and remembering why they fell in love in the first place — even realizing what they have been doing wrong
The implications are clear: Graham and Eliza yearn for their relationship yet don’t actually speak their desire, instead they talk in subliminals and half-baked conversations that lead to miscommunications and pain. It’s...sad. Do I Know You really captures how people who love each other can drift so far apart that it seems like nothing will fix it because everything they do to reach for each other leads them astray.
Then the game is born: through a miscommunication with David, a man staying in a neighboring suite, Eliza and Graham end up participating in a charade where they don’t know each other — and liking it. After this encounter they decide to spend their whole vacation this way, using the newfound freedom to flirt with each other and talk about the very real and deep-rooted issues in their marriage.
As they get into their game, Graham and Eliza seem to shed the pressure of being a perfect couple and the book becomes lighthearted and almost giddy. While Eliza always seems open (maybe too open...) to the charade, Graham flickers between confidence and severe self-conscious awkwardness, which only serves to confuse and exasperate Eliza. Eliza, however, begins making the game less about rediscovering the relationship and more about hiding from the issues in her marriage and her personal life with her family, making Graham feel more shut out and unwanted as time goes on. Despite both of their personal issues shining through their attempts to reconnect, each interaction between them feels endlessly sweet, like they’re becoming more aware of each other and remembering why they fell in love in the first place — even realizing what they have been doing wrong.
The love between Graham and Eliza feels so genuine and deep that you truly root for them the whole time, and the yearning is chef’s kiss.
The couple makes decent progress leading up to their anniversary, but everything comes crashing down when Eliza yet again refuses to open up about her family problems and Graham takes this as a cue that she doesn’t actually want to be real with him on their anniversary and would prefer the spend the day as their personas, which only serves to hurt BOTH of them yet again. This return to bad form is only exasperated when Graham’s parents barge in on the vacation for an “innocuous” brunch, during which everything comes to light. The charade, the personas, and most importantly Graham’s insecurities. This leaves the couple on the brink of ruin yet again, with their patented move of speaking past each other rearing its head.
It’s only when Eliza faces her own shortcomings in the relationship that the two of them are able to start over, really talk about how they’re feeling, and become a unit again.
Final Thoughts
I absolutely loved this book. Pre-established relationships are kinda my jam in romance because we so often get the lead up to a relationship, but not the actual relationship! As someone who has been in a five-year relationship, stories about a couple making their way back to each other after the pressures that come up during a relationship speak to me. The love between Graham and Eliza feels so genuine and deep that you truly root for them the whole time, and the yearning is chef’s kiss.
I am a walking contradiction when it comes to the yearning trope. I love it, but I hate the miscommunication that is usually employed to make it work. Do I Know You had the perfect balance of it. Graham and Eliza speak past each other constantly, but once they decide to play their game, they slowly begin to truly communicate. Their miscommunications often come in the words they don’t say or are avoiding instead of misinterpretation of things directly stated, which 1) feels like a welcome deviation from what I’ve usually read in this trope and 2) makes me fully believe that this is a real couple.
But, as much as I have positive things about the communication and lack thereof...I have negative things to say. It feels like the final conflict of the book was a bit too close to the ending. While Graham’s flaw feels highlighted from the very beginning, Eliza’s flaw feels more subtlety included until it’s revealed that it’s the one of the biggest issues they have to face as a couple to get back to some semblance of normal — with only a few chapters left. Considering that this is a dual perspective book, where what is actually 10 chapters feels like 5, it felt like it could have been inserted a bit earlier in the narrative to give the ending room to breathe.
And while Graham and Eliza make up and become a better couple for their charade, neither of their flaws feel fully...dealt with, which I like and don’t like. In real life, relationship issues aren’t fixed with a week of pretend and some last-minute revelations, neither are deep-seated personal issues that are bleeding into your relationship. To have a neat wrap-up on what feels appropriately written as at least a year’s worth of complications would feel a bit jarring. The problem is, the book reads as if the issues still need work but are acknowledged but acts like the problems have completely subsided.
Like, the characters acknowledge that they have to put in the work and renew their vows, but that’s the last chapter of the book. We then get an epilogue months in the future that is pure bliss and no issues, not even a little tiff that they sit down and work through, the problems in their marriage are just...gone. Instead we get more confirmation that Eliza’s familial relationships are on track to improve and she’s putting in the work to keep it that way, and Graham is just being a supportive husband. The epilogue feels less about the marriage and more about Eliza. And as cute as it is to see Graham and Eliza fall into routine and sweet normalcy, I would have wanted more depth in the ending to feel fully satisfied.
Overall, I give Do I Know You 4 stars. It’s a sweet, enjoyable read with a couple you root for from beginning to end, but the ending doesn’t fully stick the landing all things considered.
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