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Romance
The Ritual
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Min Dobbs knows happily-ever-after is a fairy tale, especially with a man who only asked her to dinner to win a bet with his friends. Cal Morrisey knows commitment is impossible, especially with a woman as cranky as Min Dobbs. They agree, at the end of one disastrous evening, to never see each other again. Fate, chaos theory, Krispy Kremes, a jealous ex, a mutant cat, and an unreasonable amount of Chicken Marsala have other plans, and Bet Me turns all of it into one of the most reliably reread romantic comedies of its decade.
The scoring:
Publishers Weekly specifically singled out Deanna Hurst's narration for its energy and exuberance, calling her the perfect match for Crusie's heartfelt comedy of errors, and that assessment holds up well over two decades later. Crusie writes long, unbroken streams of internal thought as a structural device, letting the reader sit directly inside Min's spiraling, self-aware anxiety, and that style asks a lot of a narrator technically; it would be easy to let those passages flatten into monotone. Hurst instead treats them as a kind of extended comic aria, keeping Min's wit sharp even when the character is talking herself in circles, which is a large part of why listeners describe this specific narrator pairing as elevating material that could otherwise read as simply pleasant chick-lit into something genuinely funny start to finish.
Who this is for: listeners who want banter-forward enemies-to-lovers with a large, chaotic supporting cast, and readers who enjoy a heroine whose internal monologue is doing as much comic work as the plot itself.
Who this is not for: listeners who prefer tightly plotted romance without digressive comic set pieces. Bet Me is deliberately shaggy and ensemble-driven, and the humor depends on following those digressions rather than skipping past them.
Yes, Bet Me is a standalone contemporary romance and does not require reading any of Jennifer Crusie's other novels first.
Yes, Bet Me is built heavily around witty dialogue and a large ensemble of eccentric supporting characters, a hallmark of Crusie's writing style.
Many romance readers and critics consider it one of the defining romantic comedies of the 2000s, and it remains one of Jennifer Crusie's most frequently recommended novels.
Written by Jennifer Crusie. Narrated by Deanna Hurst. Browse more Romance audiobooks and ebooks.
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