Dear Henry, Love Edith by Becca Kinzer
Contemporary Romance
Published January 31, 2023 by Tyndale Fiction

Reviewed by Kate

I picked up Dear Henry, Love Edith during a 2 for 1 Audible sale recently, and was looking for a cute book a la The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary. Unfortunately, for a combination of factors, this just wasn’t it, and I decided not to finish it. But I did get 3 hours into the 8 hour audiobook, so I feel like I can make some informed criticisms. 

As I said, I was expecting The Flatshare, but instead I got Hello Stranger, mostly in the sense that literally every confusion between Edith and Henry could have been resolved by a number of VERY NORMAL reactions/interactions between the two. For example, Henry asks Edith in a letter how long she was married but she doesn’t answer in years. That is not what feels like a reasonable response, and enough of these happened that they stood out as fairly obvious. 

While I normally don’t have a problem with instalove, Dear Henry, Love Edith is actually a kind of ridiculous example of this. And that is mostly because Henry thinks Edith looks like Goldie Hawn and Edith thinks Henry looks like Paul Newman (before they know who each other are). I do not believe these are normal reference points of hot people for current humans in their late 20s/early 30s! I am older than that, and my only reference point for Paul Newman is the illustrated picture on the salad dressing bottles! 

Overall, Henry is a fairly problematic hero. First off, he is in a relationship for the entire part of the book I listened to. His girlfriend is kind of obnoxious, but he also hasn’t broken up with her. And she clearly is noticing that he does not actually enjoy spending time with her, because she suggests a break while she goes away for work. If I was Edith, I would be annoyed if I found out the guy I was getting to know (and kissing) was conveniently “on a break” with his girlfriend which at the end of he was either going to break up with or GET MARRIED TO. Feels like a fairly significant thing. 

Additionally, Henry is kind of an asshole. When his brother shows up and accuses him of sleeping with/living with some other woman who is not the girlfriend, Henry just blows up and doesn’t give the very quick two second explanation that Henry cannot go up all the stairs in his house, so Edith is staying upstairs alone, and also that it was Henry’s brother’s daughter who instigated the whole thing to begin with. ALSO, he flat out lies to Edith in the most ridiculous way, because he feels like he is “protecting” her. And I just didn’t love that feeling of “I know better than this weak woman” kind of vibe. 

Lastly, there’s side characters who magically show up to (I think) make some of the plot make more sense, and then disappear. For example, all of a sudden Edith is talking about her “great-aunt Edith, the world traveler” to explain why she wanted to travel to South Africa (and also maybe to explain why a late 20s/early 30s something has the name Edith). But it isn’t mentioned originally when Edith is mentally discussing her motivations for traveling. And Henry’s niece (conveniently two years younger than him) is present for a conversation at the beginning and is never to be heard from again! It really felt like characters were being written solely to justify certain plot choices, instead of being more organic. 

Dear Henry, Love Edith could have been such a cute rom-com! But in execution it fell flat, with an unlikeable hero and too many forced situations for the sake of the bit.