In the previous two books, Iris was my favorite of the Bright Falls trio, so I was looking forward to her story even though I was a little meh on the previous book. I guess my feelings are mixed on this one. Ultimately, I had fun, and I liked getting to know Iris through her own POV and comparing her perceptions of herself and others’ perception of her. The romantic plot provided a nice mixture of sweet and angsty, there was a bunch of fun romcom moments, and the fact that Iris apparently became a romance author between book made for some amusing meta commentary. Oh, and speaking of meta stuff: I spent most of the book comparing Iris and Danika from Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert, and then the nameless romance book Stevie picked up in Claire’s shop was… so obviously Take a Hint, Dani Brown??? I loved that touch somehow. 

I also really liked the small storyline with all the art Iris has made over the course of the book and how it told the story of all the feelings she’d been denying. It was quite possibly my favorite part of the book. It really made up for the lack of something else I had expected: I thought the theater stuff would be more prominent, showing how the characters’ actual relationship and the fake dating scheme and playing fictional characters all intersected. But there was really very little of that.

What I decidedly didn’t enjoy was how Stevie’s anxiety was handled, and I’m saying this as someone with nearly lifelong medication-resistant GAD. There were 100% some good, relatable moments! But also, she had apparently been living with her disorder since school, she had been steadily getting therapy, annnnnd she barely had a coping mechanism and a half? Literally every few chapters there’d be some moment that got me nodding along, like, yeah, I’ve been there, and here are ten different things to be tried to make the situation more bearable, and Stevie did none of those things. Until very late in the book when she was suddenly successfully coping, but the narrative completely glossed over the process and just focused on the results. To make it all fit together I started headcanoning that she was just having a bad relapse after her break-up, but it also contradicted some other parts of the narrative, and overall the vibe was very off. 

Another thing that was off: how while the book helpfully spelled out that slut shaming is bad and it’s okay for Iris to enjoy sex without commitment, the narrative showed the opposite. Everyone just aggressively wanted her to finally find true love and settle down. When it was done in an overbearing, pushy way (see: Iris’s family), it was totally bad, but when the exact same thing was prefaced with “sweetie” and done by well-meaning friends, it suddenly was… meant to be perceived as something wholly different? Except I failed to spot a distinct difference there, except for the packaging.

Despite all of the above plus some smaller grievances, I found myself invested in Iris’s journey and in the chemistry she had with Stevie, and the ending was so satisfying to read. The timely realization! The grand gesture! The finally talking it all out! There was some really lovely writing there. A bit cheesy, maybe, but hey, what’s a romcom without a bit of cheese?