A Cosmic Kind of Love by Samantha Young Published by Berkley on October 18, 2022
Genres: Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Romance
Format: eBook (416 pages)
Source: Library
Purchase: Amazon • IndieBound
Add Book: Goodreads
Space is the last thing an event planner and an astronaut need in this charming new romantic comedy from New York Times bestselling author Samantha Young.
When event planner Hallie Goodman receives party-inspiration material from the bride of her latest wedding project, the last thing she expects to find in the files are digital videos from Darcy’s ex-boyfriend. Hallie knows it’s wrong to keep watching these personal videos, but this guy is cute, funny, and an astronaut on the International Space Station to boot. She’s only human. And it’s not long until she starts sending e-mails and video diaries to his discontinued NASA address. Since they’re bouncing back, there’s no way anyone will ever be able to see them...right?
Christopher Ortiz is readjusting to life on earth and being constantly in the shadow of his deceased older brother. When a friend from NASA’s IT department forwards him the e-mails and video messages Hallie has sent, he can’t help but notice how much her sense of humor and pink hair make his heart race.
Separated by screens, Hallie and Chris are falling in love with each other, one transmission at a time. But can they make their star-crossed romance work when they each learn the other’s baggage?
I have a mild obsession with space, so obviously when I see an astronaut romance I have to pick it up. A Cosmic Kind of Love sounded exactly like my kind of thing, even though I’ve been burned before. It’s cute, but ultimately disappointing and not quite like the description. I was expecting Chris and Hallie to fall in love across space (not actual outer space), but they meet fairly early on. It’s less about the “screens” between them and more of just a way to get their relationship started.
My main problem with A Cosmic Kind of Love was how all of their problems are glossed over. In the beginning, Hallie immediately tells Chris how she invaded his privacy by watching his videos. While that is commendable, it also removed that obstacle from their budding relationship. But at the same time, he doesn’t give her that same courtesy until about half-way in, and then she’s just like “Well, you forgived me immediately, so it’s fine,” and they moved on. I expected Hallie to be more upset based on what we know of how others in her life are always taking advantage of her.
Then later in the book Chris cancels some important plans and is worried about how Hallie will react. We don’t get that scene at all. It just jumps ahead to afterward and everything is fine. And apparently at some point they had lunch with her mother and he forgot his cell phone, and that’s just glossed over way after the fact as well. There’s a couple other moments like this that I didn’t take note of, but every obstacle is just blown past to get them to the happily ever after. They do have one big fight near the end, and I think it was handled pretty well. Hallie finally puts her foot down and that was great.
In the end, I liked A Cosmic Kind of Love. I wasn’t rooting for them in the beginning, because I didn’t like the setup. It felt icky. Well, the watching their personal videos setup was interesting and I wanted to see where that went. But having Hallie come clean from the start but having Chris hide how he watched her videos didn’t sit right.
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