Now, I shouldn’t be reviewing Disaster Dates & Lucky Escapes by Tess-Smith Roberts today. I was supposedly taking a day off from the blog, but when lovely Rosa Patel from Octopus books kindly sent me a copy recently in return for an honest review I thought I’d take a quick look – and here we are!

Published on 26th October 2023 by Octopus imprint Kyle Books, Disaster Dates & Lucky Escapes is available for purchase through the links here.

Disaster Dates & Lucky Escapes

Waterstones Best Humour Books of 2023

Meet serial dater Olive. She’s just a regular gal looking for love, but navigating the wild world of modern dating is getting her no closer to finding the one – why are there so many weirdos out there?!

Follow Olive on her quest for companionship, as she goes on dates that go from bad to worse to even more disastrous, including a man who disappears after going to the toilet in a restaurant and is later spotted on shift waiting tables; a woman who vomits all over her on the beach; and a professional triangle player who gets into a fist fight and jumps out of not one but two moving cabs.

Will Olive ever find the one? And will they be everything she’s looking for?

My Review of Disaster Dates & Lucky Escapes

A comic strip style book about dating.

If you’re looking for a literary masterpiece worthy of the Nobel Prize for Literature, don’t pick up Disaster Dates & Lucky Escapes! If, however, you want a funny, entertaining and relatable insight into the world of dating, this book is perfect.

I must comment on the quality of the hardback because it is just brilliant. A strong, robust cover and heart smothered end papers make Disaster Dates & Lucky Escapes a great gift book. I loved the vibrancy of the illustrations as Olive Pitt tries a variety of ways to find love, and the cartoon nature of the people means that they feel generic and inclusive. There’s no-one who is conventionally beautiful or body perfect to make readers feel inadequate. I thoroughly appreciated the fact that Olive considers dates with men and women in a natural manner too.

But the strength of Disaster Dates & Lucky Escapes lies in its humour. Tess Smith-Roberts presents disastrous dates with panache, from Olive’s experience with men who only care about oranges, to women obsessed with pancakes, so that there’s both an absurdity and a relatability. I thought it brilliant that Olive was still not satisfied when she found someone who did love her and it’s the love Olive discovers by the end of the book that is such an important concept.

Disaster Dates & Lucky Escapes is enormous fun with an uplifting final message. It’s also a book that made me oh so glad to be a middle aged heterosexual woman who’s been married 40 years. I don’t think I’d survive long in Olive’s world of dates, but you’ll need to read the book to discover why! I thoroughly enjoyed this diverting, entertaining and funny book.

About Tess Smith-Roberts

Tess Smith-Roberts is an Illustrator based in London. She approaches her work with humour, bold shapes, and a playful use of colour. Classic still life paintings, bad dance moves, and food (especially fruit!), are the main inspirations for her work.

For more information, visit Tess’s website, follow her on Twitter/X @TessSmithRobert or find Tess on Instagram.