I am pretty much out of my reading slump, but at what cost?? This is my third 3-star book in a row and I am just about over it 😵‍💫

This book had too many things that annoyed me to give it more stars. It was very heavy-handed on the pop culture references (something I always hate in books because it tends to date them unless it's done really well). There were also so many references to "extremely online" things, which really annoyed me. Idk if that's hypocritical as someone who is, herself, extremely online, but when you have a character perform the same exact sea shanty that went viral on social media during the beginning of the pandemic and caused a wave of other people singing sea shanties on TikTok and Instagram for months without any reference to that viral-ness, it's a little weird, no?

I also was not a fan of the boss/employee relationship. I don't care how it's handled, there's always going to be some kid of power imbalance. Either that, or like in this case it's not addressed at all?? It was super weird and unrealistic. Especially because I find it super weird that no one else in the kitchen had any issues with the new guy showing up and all of a sudden dating the boss.

And this is nit-picky but there were some odd timeline things that I think were just missed in editing (but threw me off enough to take me out of the story). At one point Xavier said he had 2 months to get the money for Berlin. Then at the beginning of a chapter it said it had been 3 months since his and Logan's first kiss and since they'd started dating. But then!!! Later in that same chapter (or maybe the next one, I can't remember) Xavier says it's been one month since their first kiss?? This is not usually the kind of mistake you see in a book published by a major publisher, so that's why it threw me off.

I don't want this to be completely negative, so I will note some positives: I liked Logan's relationship with his daughter. And also yay for an explicitly bi male character 🙌🏻 And minus the whole boss/employee dynamic, I did think Logan and Xavier had a fun dynamic. I just couldn't get past the work part of it and how it was (not really) handled. I'm hoping I enjoy the author's other adult romance more, because that one is also sitting on my shelf waiting for me 😬