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We don’t know why it takes three authors to pin this fable of life, love, and careers in a black world, and how they put it all together while managing day jobs is another mystery, but The Vow is good. Another spin on the chick-flick novel, it tells the story of three bridesmaids at a New Year’s wedding who make a resolution to find a groom in 365 days. Do they do it? Do we care? For real.

Trista, Amaya, and Vivian have enviable careers. Love lives? Not so much. It’s a lipstick jungle out there, baby, and you can blame the game all you want, but let’s give the lover-boy players their due: a hip-hop mogul keeping his lady friend in Tiffany’s while the ring remains welded (or wedded) to his finger, the sensitive perfection of a partner who gets some low down on the down low, and don’t even start with the baby daddy seven years in the making of a husband. These long—serious—and tall black men have their problems, and it kicks that you don’t know how close to heaven or hell they are.

Same with the three ladies at the core of this story. Talking to hard-core fans of Sex and the City, you’d think Carrie was a saint, but it was her prudish, judgmental side that made her tolerable. Likewise, nobody wants to read a novel with three visions of female faultlessness. Trista is a Type A bitch who won’t help a friend out if it crosses very, very fine lines at work. And working it while working it out, up-and-coming actress Amaya is just too sexy and ambitious to not let it work to her advantage. Finally, Ms. Vivian fights with her son’s father more than she fights with the fact that she still loves him.

Enough with the love when the situation gets hot and heavy every 40 pages. If you read The Vow with a little bubbly and candles burning, make sure you have a flute nearby for a happy ending of your own.

What’s up with the white-girl hate, though? The white heifer stealing good black men scenario is understandable, as is rude receptionists who give attitude, but the pure, straightforward white-girls-suck, sucks. Maybe it’s an attempt to add to the sistahood, but these women support each other—sometimes unconditionally and, more often, realistically conditionally—and have relationships that ring true. The hate leaves a bitter taste in an otherwise flavorful and hot romantic comedy.

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