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This article is part of <\/span><\/i>Upstream,<\/span><\/i><\/a> The Daily Wire\u2019s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories \u2014 from our featured writers to you.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/p>\n Forget the news cycle and the savagery of social media and book an extended vacation for your mind with Dana Perino\u2019s debut rom-com \u201c<\/span>Purple State<\/span><\/a>.\u201d It serves all the thrilling crushes, heartwarming moments, and homespun comfort you could ask for, and I\u2019m calling every politico, uptown baddie, horse girl, PSL babe, and farmers market sis out there: This one\u2019s for you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This romantic romp skirts the \u201cFifty Shades\u201d stuff and keeps things suitable for work \u2014 apart from the intoxicating smell of a new boyfriend\u2019s T-shirt. By the last line, I was tearing up and wishing for a hundred more pages.<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s the setup. Three New York City besties known as The Crew (Dorothy \u201cDot\u201d Clark, Mary Russo, and Harper Lee Adler) say goodbye to the Big Apple for a year to pitch in on a Democratic election in normie Cedar Falls, Wisconsin. While they\u2019re convinced they\u2019ll miss the hustle and bustle of the city, they\u2019re equally maxed out on the usual: accidentally flirting with guys who play for the other team, struggling to afford life, and feeling stuck in their careers.<\/span><\/p>\n So, over cocktails, they agree to one last wild adventure together. A temporary respite from their \u201cwhat am I doing with my life\u201d era. Everything sounds like a good idea after a glass of sangria.<\/span><\/p>\n Once they settle into their new digs just outside of Milwaukee, things get real \u2014 and covered in manure. Maybe you can take a girl out of the big city, but can you take the big city out of the girl? The Crew grow to appreciate the Midwest charms of indie bookshops, restaurants with quaint names like \u201cCocoa and Cabernet,\u201d and locals-only wisdom, but as they count down the months until their return to normal life, unexpected connections with three of Cedar Falls\u2019 most eligible bachelors make things a little complicated. The hot, handy guy-on-a-farm aesthetic only cranks up the heat.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPurple State\u201d is the fifth release from Dana Perino and her first fictional work. According to my coworkers who saw me flipping through pages, eating up every word like an AMC <\/span>MegaBag<\/span><\/a> of movie popcorn, there\u2019s no shortage of love around here for the Fox News commentator and New York Times bestselling author. After the third time I heard \u201clove<\/em><\/span> Dana Perino,\u201d I looked up to see if Dana was standing behind me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m also a fan, but I\u2019m not making commission on every sale of \u201cPurple State.\u201d <\/span>I\u2019m just a girl<\/span><\/a>, standing in front of a book, asking you to love it. So here\u2019s my honest take: Don\u2019t overthink it. Sink into this breezy beach read like a pumpkin spice hot tub topped with apple pie cold foam and, if you\u2019re a city gal, indulge in the quaint comfort of rural life.<\/span><\/p>\n Hallmark movie energy abounds. I admit to openly rejecting saccharine hot-cocoa-and-mittens meet-cutes \u2014 and then wrapping myself like a burrito in my duvet while wishing <\/span>my<\/span><\/i> boyfriend were stringing Christmas lights around the town square he secretly flooded with water so it could be an ice skating rink. As Mary Russo notes, \u201cCedar Falls? Are you serious \u2014 that\u2019s a real place, not a Hallmark movie town?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Descriptions of a dairy barn as \u201cpungent\u201d reminded me of childhood sleepovers at my friend\u2019s family farm when we fed young calves from giant milk bottles and rode the moving feed trough, pretending to \u201cinterview\u201d them, until I could no longer stomach the stench. (I was a \u2018burbs girlie.) Never mind the one time I witnessed the birth of a calf. Let\u2019s just say I never wanted to grow up to be a veterinarian.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But please show me the ice-cold soul who can resist the Cedar Falls harvest festival on a perfectly crisp autumn morning. With everyone holding \u201csteaming mugs of apple cider,\u201d a pie-eating contest, and a live band with a banjo, it\u2019s so dang cozy, you could fall in love with the nearest stop sign.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Still, Dana doesn\u2019t leave the brunch-and-bodega crowd behind. Her depictions of New York City outline a delicate tattoo on the hearts of anyone who ever dreamed of living it up in a hand-me-down loft and zipping all over town with her dream guy, toasting cocktails with girlfriends at <\/span>Joanne Trattoria<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in real life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOn the one hand, she pictured herself in a corner office at the firm, having made partner by the age of thirty,\u201d Dana writes of Dot. Describing her high-rise apartment fantasy, with a wardrobe of gorgeous clothes and no money problems, Dana continues, \u201cShe\u2019d throw dinner parties, donate to the Met, and still make it to Sunday supper at her parents\u2019 house.\u201d Like some kind of Carrie Bradshaw utopia, it\u2019s that impossible dream that makes it hard to let go.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For those of us living in our own purple states of varying kinds, Dana also offers a soft landing where no one side feels too extreme, or \u201cright.\u201d With everyone able to maintain civil conversations and keep their priorities in order, the push and pull between political ideals provides the background music to relationships and daily routines. Like most of us do in real life, we leave the crazy stuff for the internet.<\/span><\/p>\n I mention how much everyone loves Dana Perino because that\u2019s what inspired me to dive a little deeper on the author. I soon recognized her long, happy marriage to her English husband, <\/span>Peter McMahon,<\/span><\/a> mirrored in the characters who own the Cedar Falls bookstore (but <\/span>she\u2019s<\/span><\/i> British; he\u2019s American). Having no kids of their own, the fictional couple dishes out sage advice at just the right moment. Like I imagine Dana and Peter do.<\/span><\/p>\n The dog on the jacket cover also looks exactly like Dana\u2019s copper-colored vizsla, <\/span>Percy<\/span><\/a>. That kind of thing, and the subtle shoutout to Dana\u2019s Fox show \u201cThe Five\u201d and Greg Gutfeld, personalizes the story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Not gonna lie, I found some scenes to be a touch unbelievable, and a few of the jokes land like soft-serve vanilla that falls off the cone and onto the floor. (These are New Yorkers; they need quick-witted dialogue with bite.) And a surprise HGTV-style makeover doesn\u2019t quite pay off with the emotional reveal. I guess not everything can be \u201cFixer Upper.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n