Don’t you love when a new book by one of your favourite authors comes out? He’s Cancelled is the latest book by Sophie Ranald, who is a recent favourite author of mine. I’ve read two of her books through NetGalley – you can find my review of Thank You, Next here – and since the last one, I’ve basically gone back and read all the connected books to those first two. Sophie Ranald always writes such fun books that also tend to contain at least a little emotional turmoil.
He’s Cancelled is connected to Just Saying and Thank You, Next. This book follows Natalie, a physiotherapist who has been dating shop owner Archie for a while. Yeah, that Archie and Natalie for those of you who’ve read Just Saying. The past is in the past, and in this book, Archie proposes to Natalie. Obviously, things are smooth sailing from there, right? Nope. Natalie is stressing out like hell over the wedding, over family stuff, and the fact her future Mother-in-Law and Sister-in-Law seem to be trying to take over the wedding. She doesn’t know what to do, and you know that’s going to impact her life.
I really enjoyed the characters in this book. They maybe weren’t my favourites from Sophie Ranald, but they were fun. Natalie is a generally lovely woman. Her job means that she obviously has to be empathetic. But when you see her with her friends and family, it does shine through. I did kind of have one issue though. It’s probably nothing major that would upset anyone else, and it didn’t stop me from reading. But she was a bit of a hypocrite, and it bugged me. Obviously, during wedding planning, you run the possibility of strippers for the stag and hen dos. That’s kinda normal, and that’s fine. Except, when her friend assumes a police officer is a stripper on her hen do, it’s hilarious. When it comes to the stag do? She goes on at Archie about how he shouldn’t have strippers because it goes against her beliefs? Like, I get that you don’t think women should need to be drooled over and degraded. But you know that’s not a lot of strip clubs, right? She mentions how she- the stripper – wouldn’t be allowed to touch the customers. And lamented the reasons why the women may have made the decision to work there. Errr…maybe they just enjoy it? There are usually rules in place to stop strippers of all genders from being harassed, and it’s not necessarily seedy. So this just kinda bugged me as, yeah, not exactly a feminist statement, and we’re in 2021 now, guys. Let’s try better.
Obviously, romance was an important part of this book. It always is in Sophie Ranald’s books, and we are once again following a couple. There’s going to be trials and tribulations, but from the summary, you can probably guess that this is just going to be a bump in the path. Archie could be a really sweet boyfriend, but he also kind of sucked. He really does leave everything to Natalie, then tells her not to stress. He tells her to just be honest with his family, which, yeah, she probably should have. Then keeps disappearing to go off to work on his coffee anyway. It was frustrating because they really both could have done better communicating. But that was the point. They aren’t supposed to be a perfect couple yet, and they do grow individually as well as together.
Family is an important aspect of this book. As well as Archie’s family, you get to see Natalie’s too. She was raised by a young single mum, and for a lot of years, it’s just been them and her Grandpa. Natalie wants to help her mum be happy, but when her Grandpa starts having health troubles, there’s a lot of stress there. This is where the pain of this book mostly was. Some of the stuff with her Grandpa was heartbreaking. I really felt for Nat and her mum. They can’t have had easy decisions to make, and I teared up a few times. They did what was best, and they’re clearly a lovely family.
Quick warning to say that near the end of this book, Covid does pop up. This is mostly set around the end of 2019, beginning of 2020. I wasn’t necessarily aware of that going into it, and it’s not the main plot point. It just changes their situations a little near the end. I don’t mind that, but I know some people don’t want to read anything involving the pandemic. So this book might not be for you if that’s the case.
Overall I did really enjoy this book. I expected to, but it’s always a pleasant surprise to see how easily I get through these books. I can’t wait for the next Sophie Ranald book and to see where she goes next.
4/5 Stars
BOOK INFO
Title: He’s Cancelled
Author: Sophie Ranald
Genre: Chick-Lit
Age Range: Adult
Publisher: Bookouture
Release Date: 21/06/21
BUY LINKS
Lace and Dagger Books 
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