[Review] Cherry Baby - Rainbow Rowell

Summary: Everybody knows that Cherry's husband, Tom, is in Hollywood making a movie . . .

Almost nobody knows that he isn't coming home.

Tom is the creator of Thursday—a semi-autobiographical webcomic that's become an international phenomenon.

Semi-autobiographical. That means there's a character in this movie based on Cherry . . . "Baby."

Wide-hipped, heavy-chested, double-chinned Baby.

Cherry never wanted this. No fat girl wants to see herself caricatured on the page—let alone on the big screen. But there's no getting away from it. Baby looks so much like Cherry that strangers recognize her at the grocery store.

While her soon-to-be ex-husband is in Los Angeles getting rich and famous and being the internet's latest boyfriend, Cherry is stuck in Omaha taking care of the dog he always wanted and the house they were going to raise a family in . . . and wondering who she's supposed to be without him.

Cherry had promised to love Tom through thick and thin.

She'd meant it.

One night, Cherry decides to leave all her problems, including Tom's overgrown puppy, at home. She ventures out to see her favorite band play her favorite album . . . and someone recognizes her from across the room.

Russ Sutton knew Cherry when she was a young art student with a fondness for pin-up dresses and patent leather heels. Before Tom.

Russ knows Cherry. He likes Cherry.

And best of all . . . he's never heard of Thursday.

Tender, funny, and utterly human, Cherry Baby is Rainbow Rowell's richest, most surprising—sexiest—novel yet. (Pub Date: Apr 14 2026)

Cherry has divorced from her husband. Or rather, Tom left home a year ago and she told him to never come back. Or rather, they haven't really divorced yet because for that they actually need to talk things through. But with Tom being a success in Hollywood with a movie based on his comic strips, it's time for time to move and have fun. And that's how she finds Russ again, the guy she had a crush on during college. Maybe they can work out this time around, and she can get over Tom.

3+

A lot of the book is about going through divorce and the end of relationships, but gradually the focus also turns to being overweight with interesting points of view on more recent issues, such as the use of Ozempic. Especially on the divorce topic, this book may have lost me. It felt raw but since I've never even been married, it also felt too distant to me. I'm not sure if that was my main issue with it or if maybe it really was too much. I don't even say too much drama, it's not the intensity as much as it was the length dedicated to it. Especially with the direction it end up taking. 

I've only read two other books by this author and both were over ten years ago, but I do remember having this lukewarm feeling of "I kind of liked it but I don't know". This was another.

I'm also not sure of the ending. To be honest, I did cheer for that to happen, but if you look at the plot and everything Cherry goes through, I don't think it was the best for her. It was just what was more comfortable. 

So this is an okay read with very good points and some others that drag way too much. It's perfect if you like second chance stories that focus more on the main character's development than on the romance itself.

Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

Rating: 3 out of 5.