I liked the second book better than the first! This was stellar.

I liked that this was a little darker than the first, which the author did have a trigger warning/note about in the beginning. I enjoyed the discussions of PTSD and how the previous murder/hostage-holding had impacted Lila because I feel like books like this usually would reference the past like a “haha that’s crazy that that happened” way and then promptly move on which just doesn’t seem realistic to me. I liked seeing in the sequel it was more of a vibe of “actually moving on from something like that is HARD and I am not doing well!!”

In that vein, I liked the love triangle aspect and that Lila was like “thank you for your interest but I must focus on myself right now, I’ve been through a lot” which is also rare in a romance-esque novel. Put yourself first, girl!

Small moments I enjoyed:
I still laughed out loud several times, even with the darker tones. I love how much her family loves each other. I love all the discussions of therapy and seeking help and how it is stigmatized in many communities. I loved how naturally diverse and interesting all the side characters were! (Though I will note if I had to criticize one thing it would be that there were a few too many people to keep track of and I got lost on who some people were sometimes.) I listened to the audiobook so it took me a while to realize their cafe name was Brew-ha (I only noticed when I looked it up on GoodReads) which is indeed a great pun for them. The food descriptions were