Hmm so I’m coming out of this really unsure about the whole thing… and yes it’s bc there are things i liked, and things I didn’t, but I think the main reason is pacing. The book is paced SO weirdly, with most of the plot and all of the sex in the first half, and the relationship development stage in the second, which makes the third act conflict feel VERY wonky as the second half is just back to back to back talking about emotions and crying. Like duh look at the genre but in other books some of those scenes would be followed by smut, but again all the smut was in the first half? Speaking of the smut, none of it stuck with me apparently, but what DID was Chapter 20…. Which is so beautifully tender and cute. Love it. Didn’t love the third act conflict (Maria girl we could have communicated more and a bit better, Peter you’re lowkey innocent and your realization was very sweet. ). Would it have been fine if the last 100ish pages weren’t also weepy “let’s talk abt our scars from our past relationships romantic familial and platonic” for the whole time? Maybe! Idk! 

But you know what I really liked actually? Peter and Maria as characters, not just in the textual way but metatextually. Literally we never get romance where both halves of the couple are fat, which sucks because we’re hot! But even beyond that the way Dade constructed these characters was quite awesome imo because they BOTH get to have traits that, in your regular degular capital-H Heterosexual romance you would never in 100000 years give to a character because they’re… gendered in the opposite direction of that makes sense? For example something that’s emphasized throughout is that Maria does hella strength training and is really strong, and Peter is so so attracted to that - you don’t get that in the “he’s such a BIG TALL MAN and I’m so little and PETITE” books because the author believes that would get in the way of the cishet female fantasy, but like since these characters already exist outside of the conventional beauty standard for thinness there’s more room for things to be attracted to. Y’all get it?? Please tell me you get it!

And finally something I think has become customary in my Olivia Dade reviews - the “wait why didn’t this happen” - except in the form of why isn’t there a fourth book following the secret lesbian love affair that was just happening in the background and all the straight people were too busy to notice?? Yes, I saw that it + the peg that was promised in all the feels are bonus stories. Why must you torment me so?