★ 3.5 stars ★

content warnings:

Spoiler

precanon parent death(s), cancer, grief, infidelity, past physical & emotional child abuse, abandonment, trauma, emetophobia, hangover, discussion of a cult, mention of alcoholism, non-graphic sexual content

rep:

Spoiler

WLW secondary characters & F/F established relationship

I have to confess that I may have gotten my hopes up a little bit too high, considering I know how I generally feel about Adult Contemporary/Romance as a genre and about hyped books. So this ended up being "just okay" despite a premise I really wanted to buy into, with several of my favorite tropes:

Spoiler

writer MC (two of them, even!), enemies (to friends) to lovers, belligerent sexual tension, professional rivals (sort of), unrequited pining, reunited years later, renewed unrequited pining, boy-/girl-next-door

.

Honestly, I was slightly underwhelmed in multiple categories. Something about the dialogue felt a little bit off and some of the banter a little too quirky, and I was not super into the metaphors Henry uses to illustrate January's emotions and attraction. Sometimes I found the family relationships more compelling than the romance, in part because some of the romantic angst felt contrived for drama or to drag out the narrative arc rather than a natural progression. I really liked January and Gus's book bet and research dates, but at some point that started to feel like an afterthought and I wanted more. And there were some nice setting descriptions, a vague sense of the community, but it was definitely a backdrop rather than (almost) a character itself.

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CONVERSION: 9.2 / 15 = 3.5 stars

Prose: 5 / 10
Characters & Relationships: 7 / 10
Emotional Impact: 6 / 10
Development / Flow: 6 / 10
Setting: 7 / 10

Originality / Trope Execution: 3 / 5
Rereadability: 3 / 5