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cielosiluminado 's review for:

Four Weekends and a Funeral by Ellie Palmer
2.5
emotional funny hopeful medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

special thanks to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

i am not the target audience because i found some pop culture references too cringy for me as gen z, or i did not understand some references completely, BUT! i can see millennials absolutely loving this.

what i really liked about this book was that heavy topics mentioned, and their impact, throughout the book, i.e. cancer and death, was softened by the humor, making it easier to read and digest. i also really liked all the quirks of the main characters – alison mullally and adam berg – and their family and friends.

but definitely one of my favorite things in the entire book was the banter between alison and adam. they were hot and cold, and overall just cuteness overload.

it was nice and informative seeing representation of carriers and survivors of the BRCA-1 gene and double-mastectomies. not only that, it was refreshing seeing how normalized and expressed talking about, or experiencing intense, extreme emotions (such as survivor's guilt, grief, self-acceptance, etc.) were in this book. no one was ever shamed for feeling what they felt.

what could need some more work was the pacing of the book. some things felt like extremely fast paced but then it all slowed down and i had to push myself forward.

overall, this book felt like watching a romcom. it had all the classic themes seen in romcoms, with the cliché grumpy-sunshine main characters, the "scandal" that separates them, and the public proclamations of love. a promising debut for the author.

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