Thank You For Sharing is one of the best contemporary romances of 2023, with its quick wit and soft-hearted love story. I adored the central protagonists, and I loved the way they move with aching slowness toward attachment after years of bitterness.

Liyah Cohen-Jackson hasn’t seen Daniel Rosenberg since they had a huge blow-up fight at summer camp when they were thirteen. Bumping into one another on a flight to Chicago, they find themselves hashing out old wounds an in uncomfortable way. They think that’s the last they’ll ever see of each other.

Then Liyah learns that Daniel is the marketing guy helping out the museum at which she’s currently a junior curator. If her latest project comes off without a hitch then Liyah’s looking at a promotion. She and Daniel spend time together on the job, and soon they’re spending time together off of it. Picking apart their old wounds and fostering new connections is all well and good, but will Daniel and Liyah truly last forever?

There is a painful, wonderfully wounded tenderness to Thank You For Sharing that makes it a cut above most other contemporary romances. Liyah is understandably self-defensive after all of the things she’s been through and experienced (she’s a sexual assault victim who was raped by her college best friend, and constantly battles prejudice and stereotypes as a bisexual Black Jewish woman working in a museum setting), while Daniel is apologetic. He’s a bisexual Jewish man, and is carrying baggage of his own into the relationship. Your heart will ache for them, and you will smile and laugh and cry as they take the long, winding trip toward true love together.

How they settle into this relationship – and how Daniel learns about Liyah’s rape – is both touching and heartbreaking. The book handles her growth as a human beautifully. I did feel as if her fear of settling into a relationship came a bit out of left field, but it makes sense due to her past. And a special shout-out to Daniel and Liyah’s friends, Jordan and Siobhan, who are wonderfully developed.

The book also does an excellent job of capturing life in Chicago, and life within the Jewish community when one is a PoC, and in the museum world. But the romance is what’s going to keep people coming back to Thank You For Sharing, and it is wonderful. Pick this one up and read it to your heart’s content – you’ll be glad you did.