The Proposal
Jasmine Guillory, 2018
Penguin Publishing
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399587689
Summary
What happens when a public proposal doesn't turn into a happy ending, thanks to a woman who knows exactly how to make one on her own?
When someone asks you to spend your life with him, it shouldn't come as a surprise—or happen in front of 45,000 people.
When freelance writer Nikole Paterson goes to a Dodgers game with her actor boyfriend, his man bun, and his bros, the last thing she expects is a scoreboard proposal.
Saying no isn't the hard part—they've only been dating for five months, and he can't even spell her name correctly. The hard part is having to face a stadium full of disappointed fans.
At the game with his sister, Carlos Ibarra comes to Nik's rescue and rushes her away from a camera crew. He's even there for her when the video goes viral and Nik's social media blows up—in a bad way.
Nik knows that in the wilds of LA, a handsome doctor like Carlos can't be looking for anything serious, so she embarks on an epic rebound with him, filled with food, fun, and fantastic sex.
But when their glorified hookups start breaking the rules, one of them has to be smart enough to put on the brakes. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1976 (?)
• Raised—Berkeley, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Wellesley College; J.D., Stanford University
• Currently—lives in Oakland, California
Jasmine Guillory is an American lawyer and author. Her novels include The Wedding Date, published early in 2018, followed by The Proposal in the fall of the same year. Both books became bestsellers.
Raised in Berkeley, California, Guillory was ingrained early on with a passion for politics, especially after watching the 1991 Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill Congressional hearings. She was further inspired by a beloved seventh-grade teacher, only ten years her senior, who left teaching to pursue a law degree. Her teacher's decision solidified Guillory's own career dreams.
After college and law school, Guillory practiced law for eight years. Yet, as she recounted to Catapult, she found she wanted something more:
After I’d been a lawyer for about eight years, I found myself longing for some sort of creative outlet. The repetitive, structured, spreadsheet-oriented nature of my work often made me feel stifled.
And so Guillory turned to writing fiction, even though she had never considered herself a writer, let alone an author—people whom she had always thought of as solitary and lonely. But Guillory loved to read, (according to family legend, she was reading at the early age of three), so she decided to try her hand at novel writing.
Guillory knew the kind of novels she wanted to write: stories about smart young black girls living in a city. To prepare herself, Guillory spent a year or more reading books about writing and reading novels to suss out the methods of character and plot development. Eventually, once her writing muscles felt strong enough, she put them to work on a romance novel, the novel we know as The Wedding Date. (Adapted from online sources, including Catapult. Retrieved 11/28/2018.)
Book Reviews
With sharp banter, a well-rounded cast of characters, and plenty of swoony scenes, Jasmine Guillory defends her position as one of the most exciting rom-com writers out there.
Buzzfeed
There is so much to relate to and throughout the novel, there is a sharp feminist edge. Loved this one, and you will too.
Roxane Gay, author
While there isn’t much of an overall plot (the majority of the book… [is] devoted to… Carlos and Nik going on dates and being cute), it’s hard to get upset about it because the whole thing is so delightful. A charming book for the modern romance lover.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for THE PROPOSAL … then take off on your own:
1. The best place to start your discussion for The Proposal is to talk about Nik and Carlos: do you sympathize with them or dislike them … and why? Why do they make the decisions they do, what motivates them?
2. What were you expectations for the couple over the course of the novel? Did those expectations, or hopes, pan out?
3. What about your own life? Do any of the events or situations in The Proposal relate to something that has ever happened (or is happening) to you?
Also, be sure to take a look at our DISCUSSION RESOURCES … they can help with any discussion:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)