Brooke Averick is the author we've all been waiting for
& why Phoebe Berman's Gonna Lose It is a practically perfect debut novel
last weekend, I finally got the opportunity to read a book that’s been on my TBR for months on end: Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It by Brooke Averick.
if you’re a 20-something year old and you spend even a little bit of time on TikTok or Instagram Reels, you’re probably already familiar with Brooke and/or her debut novel. podcaster, comedian, professional yearner, and now New York Times Bestselling author Brooke Averick has been working on, teasing, and now, releasing and promoting her first venture into romantic comedy. she pays homage to the greats of the genre while paving a new path entirely.
on paper, it might not sound like anything extraordinary: “funny Internet girl writes book”, it happens all the time these days.
you’d be wrong.
I devoured this novel. I read it in one sitting. I laughed, I cried, I yearned, I sang showtunes, I texted my friends that I love them — all because of this book. Brooke Averick has broken new ground in the contemporary romance genre and absolutely knocked it out of the park with her very first book (and very first time writing in a professional sense!). I think Phoebe Berman is extraordinary, and Brooke is even more extraordinary for what she’s done in the writing space. in this essay I will…
no, for real. in this essay I will explain why Phoebe Berman is the rom-com heroine we’ve been missing, and why Brooke Averick is the author we’ve been waiting for.
buckle up! we’re going for a ride.
Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It: an overview
(this section may contain slight spoilers. if you haven’t read the book and wish to go into it blind, skip to the next section titled “so, who is Brooke Averick?”)
“If you enjoy early-2000s rom-coms and Tumblr, you’ll love Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It.” — Brooke Averick, via Buzzfeed
Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It follows Phoebe, a hopeless romantic, elementary school teacher, and certified Anxious Person™ who is approaching her thirtieth birthday with a secret she’s dying to shed: she’s still a virgin.
her problem isn’t a lack of desire — Phoebe desperately wants love. she, like all of us, has a copy of The Fault In Our Stars that is tattered from too much use. she wants her happily ever after (and to finally “do it”).
the road block is that intimacy terrifies her. after a traumatizing first-kiss experience, Phoebe’s anxiety has grown into a practically-paralyzing fear of dating and physical intimacy.
(and she’s so real for that!!!)
with only thirty days until her thirtieth birthday, Phoebe creates a meticulously organized plan to finally lose her virginity and, ideally, find love in the process. with three men on her roster and a to-do list that she’s ready to religiously follow, Phoebe is ready to put herself out there (or so she thinks).
what follows is a month of awkward encounters, romantic fantasies, weekly therapy sessions, regular bar trivia, and a lot of time spent scheming with friends — along with spirals, conflict (duh), and the harsh reality that finding love might require more than just a perfect checklist.
the story is less about Phoebe losing her virginity, and more about what happens when a professional yearner who wants love more than anything learns how to finally embrace it in the real world.
before I could even reach chapter one, I fell in love with this book. the dedication on the first page declares exactly who this book is for: the nervous pukers (which makes a lot more sense when you read chapter one). then, in the prologue written in Brooke’s authorial voice, she expands into her own romantic backstory — how she, too, is a nervous puker and has deep-rooted romance anxiety that makes it feel nearly impossible to find love.
consider me both hooked and seen.
to avoid any potential spoilers (including one of the most unexpected twists I’ve ever seen in a breezy rom-com, of which I wish I could regain the euphoria of experiencing for the first time again), let me just skip to the footnotes and tell you that I absolutely loved reading Phoebe. it warranted an immediate five-star review. it was all I could think about for the rest of the day. I immediately dove into the Internet to read others’ reviews of the book, and consume as much information as I could about the book and the brain behind it.
so, who is Brooke Averick?
I’ll be entirely honest: before the last few weeks, I didn’t know much about Brooke other than these two facts: she hosts a podcast with Fibula, and she is extremely funny. I get their pod clips all the time on my feed and I never skip past one because I know there is a guaranteed cackle in my future if I decide to watch. but ever since Phoebe Berman was released in late May, I’ve been getting spoon-fed content of Brooke practically every day, as she’s been on multiple podcasts, shows, and articles to promote the book — and I’ve loved every second of it. Brooke has now become one of my somewhat-niche interests. I’ve learned so much about her in a short span of time!
here are a few facts I now proudly know about Brooke:
Brooke openly speaks about her mental health, particularly her experience with OCD, intimacy anxiety (hence why she wrote Phoebe), and emetophobia (another nugget of Brooke’s reality that gets placed into Phoebe’s fictional world).
she often speaks about her fictional yearning — not like it’s something to be ashamed of, but something to be embraced and celebrated. she, like all of us, is obsessed with Twilight (and even worked the saga into the book, because of course she did), Heated Rivalry, and Harry Styles. her Internet persona is literally @ladyefron, a handle she chose when she was in elementary school and obsessed with Zac Efron in High School Musical. weren’t we all!
before BNCMAP, Brooke had her own podcast called Obsessed, where she would literally just talk about whatever pop culture / fictional thing she was obsessed with at the moment. and I have only one thing to say in response: how does it feel to be living my dream?
she created a nearly 200 song playlist for Phoebe, including songs from Broadway musicals, all the best Glee covers, half a dozen One Direction songs, and all those “just right” early 2000s songs, fit for a romantic comedy soundtrack.
she, along with her fans, has fancast the male leads in her book. I’ve seen a few clips of her talking about this, and I swear in one she said she’d tap in Matthew Gray Gubler, David Corenswet, and Joe Keery. (she’s always consistent about Joe Keery. she says that Joe would play Matthew, and David Corenswet would play Jonathan — but if I’m honest, I imagined it the other way around as I was reading. nevertheless, Joe Keery must be present, and I love that she agrees.)
what I also now know about Brooke is that she wrote Phoebe out of a very personal place. the idea for the plot stemmed from an event that occurred in her personal life, and Phoebe is a character who she shares a lot of struggles and desires with. in her own words, Brooke has reiterated time and time again that she wrote this novel to create the character she wished to see in the romance world: one who’s awkward, but doesn’t let that get in the way of her yearning.
“I was born a yearner. I’ve spent the past twenty-nine years falling in love with fictional characters, binging romcoms, and amassing enough celebrity crushes to build an army, so naturally, I consider myself an expert in the realm of fictional romance.
Unfortunately, my expertise in these areas does not translate to real life. At all. Because the thought of actual, real-life intimacy makes me anxious enough to throw up (and I have, many times), no matter how badly I may want it. I spent a lot of time longing to see a character with similar issues represented in the romance space, and eventually, I got tired of waiting. And so Phoebe Berman was born.” — Brooke Averick, via Barnes & Noble
I am equally impressed and inspired by Brooke, having watched her from afar for a couple of years and now become enamored with her story and rise to authorship. I truly believe she deserves every second of recognition and adoration that comes with the release of her book — and she actually signed a multi-book deal with Penguin House, so we can expect more of her wonderful words!
and on top of being incredibly talented, with Phoebe being proof of that, she’s so inspiring. I’ve never really dreamed of being a fiction author (though I’ve always loved writing, I’ve rarely pictured myself ending up on that career path), but there’s something about watching Brooke do it that makes me feel like I could, too.
our favorite authors can sometimes feel like celebrities in their own right; almost-fictional entities that exist on another plane than we do as readers. they are the producers, and we are the consumers.
Brooke has flipped that notion on its head entirely. she has been an avid enjoyer of all things romance, fiction, and fandom for her entire life — and now she gets to create her own version of those things she loves so much. thanks to her relatability and openness online, we’ve gotten to watch someone who feels tangible chase down a dream that feels unreachable for so many of us, and we’ve watched her do it with her own brand of grace and charm.
for a girl like me who spent her teen years also obsessing over Twilight, drafting short stories in a ripped composition notebook, proudly running a Tumblr blog, and dreaming small dreams of becoming a writer one day, Brooke is more than just an author — she’s the blueprint. she is living proof that those dreams can be made reality. and she champions the truth that being loud about what you love, even if the world deems it embarrassing, is a superpower!
Phoebe Berman: the heroine we’ve been missing
“Phoebe fears the one thing she wants the most: love.” — Brooke Averick, via Barnes & Noble
Averick has shared repeatedly that Phoebe as a character is based off of her own life experiences, though brought to life in a way where she isn’t a total carbon copy of Brooke. through the experiences Brooke has had in her own love life, she felt somewhat misrepresented in the romantic fiction space: “I’ve never really connected with the confident, sexually empowered [female leads]… so I was kind of waiting for someone to write a more anxious person in this kind of story” (via People).
the magic of Phoebe is that the story isn’t too far off-base from the romantic comedies that have laid the foundation, but Phoebe herself is a totally new kind of heroine that we don’t often see in these space — one that almost (see: definitely) makes you cringe because she’s so flawed and real. while reading, I was struck by the freshness of her character while still being comforted by the familiarity of the tropes.
there are countless FMCs who want love. and that’s why we read the books, isn’t it? because we can relate to the yearning itself. there, however, aren’t many heroines who desperately want to find love while simultaneously being terrified — or in Phoebe’s case, wanting to projectile vomit everywhere — by every step required to get it.
“As confident as I was about Phoebe as a character, I didn’t know where to start when it came to turning her into an entire book… Was I qualified to write a novel? I was riddled with self doubt and imposter syndrome… and then I wrote my first sentence — the dedication: ‘For the nervous pukers.’ If anyone was qualified to write this book, it was me. And so I started writing, and I didn’t stop until Phoebe got the love story she deserved.” — Brooke Averick, via Barnes & Noble
I am Emily Henry’s self-proclaimed biggest fan. I have read and re-read each of her books, and I fall in love with the MMCs all over again every time. however, I can’t say I fully relate to her female leads (except for you, Harriet, I see you wholly). there’s just something so self-actualized and confident about the women we see portrayed in modern romance — and in a time where anxiety is higher than ever among younger populations, I think those narrators are becoming harder and harder to relate to.
enter: Phoebe.
finally, a FMC who yearns like it’s her day job… but she isn’t effortlessly confident. she’s not fearless. she's really not even sexy by any stretch of the imagination, which Brooke herself mentions in the book’s prologue, so that’s not a diss!
Phoebe is awkward in a way that feels real. she spirals and overthinks and self-sabotages — and she’s actually really frustrating at times. she struggles with mental health in a very real way, and her therapy experience plays a significant role in her journey.
but she’s not a flat character, either. she struggles with anxiety, yet she’s fantastic at her job. she hasn’t found romantic love, but she’s fiercely dedicated to her friend group (and I love a found family trope, so I’m grateful it played a large part in the story). as she approaches her thirties, she still proudly loves Broadway and Tumblr and One Direction and Twilight and John Green.
Phoebe is as real as a fictional character can get.
and that’s why I love Phoebe so much — she’s flawed, sure. but her flaws aren’t something that need to be dealt with or “healed” before she’s worthy of finding the love she yearns for.
was Phoebe’s journey to finding love (or losing her virginity) perfect? no, not even a little bit. but it was real. the solution wasn’t as simple as “stop overthinking it” or “just put yourself out there” or “love will find you when you least expect it”. her story had ups and downs that I, too, am navigating as a three-dimensional person.
Phoebe is the heroine I’ve been longing to read about — because she makes me feel just a little more seen in a genre that I adore but don’t always feel empowered by.
Brooke Averick: the author we’ve been waiting for
besides the fact that Brooke wrote a practically perfect novel on the first try, her impact is even more profound than her success. she has successfully rewritten the genre and expanded the definition of who gets the spotlight in a romance story.
because at the end of the day, readers are consuming romance because they want to identify themselves within it. and there are only so many times we can consume an Andie Anderson (love you), or an Elle Woods (love you, too), or any character played by Meg Ryan. they’re wonderful comfort watches, but we don’t always feel seen by them.
“Despite how personal this story may be, it is not about me. It’s a story about someone who knows what they want but can’t seem to stop getting in their own way. It’s a story for the hopeless romantics, the anxious, the obsessed, and the friend who feels like they're always one step behind everyone else. Phoebe appeals to the flawed, messiest parts of all of us, and I truly believe there is something in this story for everyone. It is a book about all of us.” — Brooke Averick, via Barnes & Noble
Brooke wrote a perfect story full of purposeful imperfections. Phoebe is more akin to a Bridget Jones type heroine with her unique charm, lovable quirkiness, and at times unbearably frustrating decision-making.
these are the kind of stories we want to see more of in the romance sphere: not ones featuring the effortlessly cool girls and impossibly hot guys, but the kind that represent well-rounded, realistic individuals of the 21st century.
the deeply human kind.
Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It has given the yearning women with big feelings something we rarely receive: a heroine who thinks, feels, and talks like us, and an author who feels like a friend.
but what makes Brooke so singular isn’t just Phoebe — it’s that Brooke herself feels like one of us.
for so long, women have been told to outgrow their yearning, to be less sensitive, to live in the real world, to “grow up and get over your fictional crushes.” (never!!!)
Brooke Averick has respectfully squashed those notions into the ground.
she, too, is the girl who loved loves Twilight. the girl who had posters on every inch of her bedroom wall and maintains “enough celebrity crushes to build an army” (B&N). she was the girl who consumed romance her whole life and dreamed of maybe one day creating her own love story for people to consume & obsess over. she takes yearning seriously. she takes fandom seriously. she takes anxiety seriously. and in doing so, she has created a heroine who feels startlingly familiar to the women who have spent years wondering why wanting love always seemed harder for them than it appeared to be for everyone else.
Phoebe has proven that anxious women deserve love stories, even if they might flirt with the idea of throwing up when their Hinge matches ask to take them out to drinks.
Brooke has proven that anxious women get to write love stories, too — and still proudly obsess over Edward Cullen well into their adult years.
which is exactly why Brooke Averick is the author we’ve been waiting for.
and I can’t wait to read everything she writes for the rest of time!
i loved this book! i’d never felt so seen as I had in phoebe! definitely a new comfort read 🩷
i loved this and phoebe berman!!! it’s such a refreshing incredible read that we all need in our life 🩷