While I’m glad more polyamorous romance is being published, this was aggressively fine, even the steam irked me at some points. (I think I just really hate “nectar” being used as a euphemism.) I didn’t connect with any of the characters, and the first half didn’t have that much romance: it was really just Charlie getting to know Hayden and Buffy as people (but in a friendly, not romantic, way), and feeling some basic physical attraction for them as they occasionally flirt. I would’ve also liked to know both love interests more outside of the triad dynamic, there weren’t many differences in Hayden and Buffy’s relationships with Charlie. Especially because most of that (“)characterization(“) was done at the beginning, and once Hayden and Buffy established they were polyamorous, them and Charlie became more of a unit. I think seeing that, and waiting until later to see how all of them create their own relationship as a trio, would have been more satisfying.

I know that Charlie’s fan gushing was mostly done at the beginning, but I was uncomfortable with the sort-of-parasocial admiration they had towards Buffy. It doesn’t help that there’s one of those clichéd “the love interest isn’t just this one thing, I’m learning they’re all of these things and I love them all!!” moments but specifically with them thinking of Buffy.  

I thought some parts were cute, such as Charlie’s moments with Rainbow, but not much else. The story was light (and meta, for that one line said by Frances), but I couldn’t help attributing that to Charlie’s rose-tinted outlook on their new polyamorous relationship, and most of the other characters in the story. (Which is sort of funny, considering how most of their other internal monologues are dripping with millennial cynicism.)

Also, another reviewer pointed this out, but don’t let your boss in on your union-organizing meetings, “no matter how ‘cool’ or ‘chill’ they seem”. The last chapter made me cringe haha.

If I didn’t have a convoluted reason to be reading this, I would have DNF’ed it, or maybe never picked it up at all. (The summary’s already unbelievable, and the cover art…doesn’t exactly draw me in…)