Book Title: Out of Her League
Author: Ava Rani
Publisher: Avon
Publishing Date: May 2026
If there’s one thing Ava Rani knows how to do well, it is writing messy people who endear themselves to us.
Out of Her League is honest in what it promises. Isa is a surgeon who clearly loves her work, describing her OR time as an out-of-body experience. She describes,
“In the OR, I was a maestro leading an entire symphony muddled with sounds of bone saw and the occasional cautery.”
Austin is an athlete in recovery, a footballer, who is navigating life post a serious knee injury, weighing his future in coaching versus the dreams he shared with his best friend. So when the book’s marketed to us as Grey’s Anatomy meets Ted Lasso, it lands the perfect pitch, because the humor, drama, and epiphanic punches all line up very well.
They come together in a tame plan to pretend to date during Isa’s best friend’s wedding, to insulate Isa from a hurt pride. In return, Austin gets access to rich people with deep pockets to secure funding for his dreams.
“She’d eventually find some ambitious, well-read, scholarly take-over-the-world type. Someone in her league who could keep up. Her bruised ego would heal. And in the meantime, if she wanted to see Blake squirm, I’d make sure he did.”
A Pairing worth shipping, wake the internet
Superficially, they may seem an unlikely pair, but learning more about them, readers realise that they have a lot more in common than we were ef to believe: they’ve both been spurned by their careers in a manner of speaking, they find themselves in spirals of self-doubt, grief and masochistic coping mechanisms, and at their resepctive crucial career crossroads, they are confronted with a reality that shakes their existing belief systems.
Isa is coming off a lifetime of living up to the legacy of her parents, in whom she sees the accomplished professional and the sacrificial lamb, both of whom she feels responsible to atone. Austin is coming off a reckoning from a shallow life of short-lived thrills to contemplate the best way to honour his deceased best friend’s dreams, even as his cynicism ensnares him, “remembering how I used to live in that feeling. When nothing felt impossible.”
“Despite the ocean of differences between us, she managed to fish out a similarity. She envisioned her path into the future like rungs on a ladder. I used to do that, too.”
Austin and Isa are strong protagonists who stand individually as well-fleshed personalities, dealing with grown-up problems in not-quite-well-adjusted ways. So OOHL lands as not just a romance novel but also a late-in-life coming-of-age in punches, stories of growth for these two individuals we learn so much about.
Isa’s convictions of being “a woman in surgery. We didn’t break. Especially not over a guy” and her self-imposed pressure of holding herself to an exacting standard and ambition were foibles that received their own arcs in this story. The portrayal of Isa descending into a panic at the sight of her ex, now engaged, was extremely realistic, and her lukewarm revenge-fake date plan proposal was largely harmless. There’s something to be said about books that are endearing because of the self-awareness in their tropes.
Consider this hilarious set-up to Isa’s fake dating proposal:
“This is going to sound insane but keep in mind I am Ivy League educated and every plan I’ve made for my life has worked so far.”
The dynamic between Isa and Austin is extremely fun, because they oscillate between (excellent) banter as well as hardcore flashes of vulnerability, and have very mature thought processes, a refreshing change from many new-adult stories. OOHL, however, does not dwell too deeply on one theme for too long. They jibe about their age gap, professional differences, upbringing, among other things, but keep it going. Another score for Rani.
To fully enjoy the very bingeable book, readers are advised to not get hung up on trivial things like facts. There are realities being constructed here in the context of sports and medicine that may require a stretch of your suspension of disbelief but the easygoing storytelling is so honey-smooth that it’s easier to glide through it than let the details bog you in the sticky tentacles. Like honey, too, the pacing and plot are delicious.
Ava Rani also delivers some of the most exciting, refreshing scenes for the desi heart: who hasn’t daydreamed of some spice at desi wedding festivities, with henna as foreplay? Austin and Isa’s sexual chemistry needed no convincing with how absolutely charming and confident, respectively, they were. An equal partnership where they were able to be their most candid, vulnerable selves.
For a regular romance reader too, treats abound: the morsels of the fake dating trope are satiating with Austin’s persistent teasing of Isa for her “little crush”, and the grovelling and grand gestures belong in the same hall of fame as some of internet’s viral book boyfriends like Ryan Shay, and hopefully this book gets its flowers.
Fans of Rani will also enjoy the Henry and Selena appearances, and new readers will be tempted to explore the backlists.
Despite a book title and slogan that does its uniqueness a disservice, Out Of Her League manages to sneak up on you and delivers more than the promise of tropes. There are a handful of bursts of very memorable, emotionally-charged moments, and while they could have been held together even tighter, we are not complaining.
Vikas Adam and Vanessa Vasquez were perfect as the leading protagonist-narrators in the audiobook production. They captured all the sweetness of this duo’s love and there was absolutely no pretentiousness.
This book is perfect for:
- Anyone who loves communication and grovelling and swoony banter.
- Fans of Liz Tomforde’s The Windy City series, particularly The Right Move or Play Along, with a swoony new book boyfriend and a force-to-be-reckoned-with doctor lead.
- Diverse cultural representation that goes beyond the usual schtick of “parental pressure” and is not afraid to dive into the complexities of it.
- Readers who want complex, layered protagonists who actually talk and walk like adults, even through their breakdowns and crises.
WRB rates Out of Her League by Ava Rani a solid 4.25/5
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an Advanced Review Copy (ARC). All opinions are my own.