“Main Characters” by Bobby Palmer: Fall In Love With Falling In Love (BOOK REVIEW)

Fall In Love With Falling In Love

Hey, Alex! What have you been reading lately?

In 2026, I cried because of a man. That man is called Bobby Palmer.

I rarely pick up a book because of its blurb, but Main Characters by Bobby Palmer was the exception: “This is a love story, told by everyone but the main characters. Clara and Seb are about to fall in love. They don’t know it yet. But everybody else does.”

Immediate trust fall.

Huge thank you to NetGalley and Headline for letting me read an advanced copy of what has now cemented itself as my favourite romance novel of all time. Main Characters spans from the early 2000s to the 2020s, but reading it felt like watching a 90s meet-cute rom-com starring Julia Roberts. It reminded me what falling in love actually feels like, and why people still chase it in an age of short-term fun, zero commitment, and dating apps.

Seb and Clara’s story will make you fall in love with the idea of falling in love. It absolutely did that to me. If you take one recommendation from me this year, let it be this one.

Tell me more. What is the book about?

Everyone knows Clara and Seb will fall in love. Their friends and coworkers know it. Baristas, dog walkers, strangers on the train know it. It’s only a matter of time before these two big dreamers find their way to each other. And when they finally do, life feels impossibly good.

But love, as it turns out, isn’t always enough on its own. Seb wants to start a family. Clara wants to become a famous film director. When Clara casts Seb in a role that’s meant to kickstart his acting career, it instead becomes the beginning of heartbreak. From the outside, it looks like their love story might be over. But this story isn’t just theirs.

Main Characters belongs to all those with minor roles around them. And maybe, if enough people believe in their future, Seb and Clara can find their way back to each other and build a life that allows room for both love and ambition.

What are some strong and weak points of the book?

This is, to put it simply, the most beautiful and inspiring love story I have ever read.

Seb and Clara don’t have it easy. This is not a neat, conventional romance. They both carry pain, fear, and unspoken insecurities, and they lean on each other for support until they stop seeing that support and begin to fall apart. When they go their separate ways, everyone around them aches for them to reunite, because it just makes sense that they belong together.

There are no fortune tellers or soulmate prophecies in Main Characters. Instead, it’s ordinary people – friends, acquaintances, strangers – who teach Seb and Clara how to grow up, reflect, forgive, and choose love again.

What I loved most about this novel is its narration style. Seb and Clara are the main characters, yet we never experience the world through their eyes. We see them through the perspectives of hopeless romantics watching from the sidelines, of those living simple lives who are somehow moved by Seb and Clara’s quiet, magnetic pull toward each other.

Expect time jumps, tear-inducing moments, and plot twists that keep you hooked until the final page. This is a story about two people told through the eyes of a hundred. This voyeurism is a metaphor for society’s relationship with vulnerability, where it’s often easier to observe love from a safe distance than to risk diving into it ourselves.

As Clara and Seb grow more successful and visible, they begin to struggle with their identities. Seb, deeply tied to his family, feels unaccomplished at forty. Clara has become the woman she always dreamed of being, yet the version of herself doing interviews and smiling for cameras doesn’t feel authentic.

How do we know when we are truly ourselves? Can we be ourselves when everyone is watching?

Only when Clara and Seb are together do they feel at home with themselves and with the world. And to me, that is what true love is.

Any final thoughts? Should I read it too?

Yes. Without a single doubt, yes.

Let Main Characters sweep you off your feet. It is tender, devastating, funny, and hopeful in equal measure. It will remind you why love is worth the risk, why timing matters, and why sometimes the most important stories are the ones everyone else can see before we do.

I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Thank you so much!! Are there any similar books that you can recommend?

🌼 Dandelion Is Dead by Rosie Storey — grief, love, and modern dating collide in a messy, funny, emotionally honest story about forgiveness.

🎧 Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell — a tender, unforgettable coming-of-age romance about first love and finding home in the face of another person.

📲 limaistyping…

rating: ☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️
tropes: 📸 meet cute | 🎢 complicated relationship | ⚖️ career vs family | 📈 Bildungsroman | 🫂 second chance
read if you like: The Roses, black & white cinema, female directors, rock bands, Leicester
look out for: ✈️ the woman from 13C | 🍝 Giuseppe the chef | 💄 makeup room gossip | 👩‍🦰 Nora’s hair colour | 💔 a heart-attacking finale
Reading this feels like you are watching your own life through a kaleidoscope and it is full of colour and the tears falling down are from happiness.