3.5
I liked this well enough, although it's not like, a new favorite. I liked the character of Lena, and the side characters that made up her family and friends. I also thought she and Max had fun chemistry and flirty moments. I will say that I began to lose interest in the second half a little, although I can't really pinpoint why that is. I also thought the conflict towards the end of the book felt a little manufactured and contrived, and the last couple scenes between Lena and Max are SUPER CORNY imo.
For people looking for steamy scenes, this takes a bit to get there, but they pretty much go from no physical interaction to multiple raunchy sex scenes one after another, so the pacing is a little weird there.

All in all, this was a quick read and I would read something from the author in the future.

This should be required reading in our schools.

I grew up in a small town in Southeast Alaska around Native Alaskan culture. Through elementary school we learned about Northwest Coast art, music, dancing, mythology, among other things.

In high school one of our required classes was Alaska state history, which delved more deeply into things like the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1977 and the repercussions of that legislation.

I married a man who is Alaska Native, and also a member of one of the Salish Coast tribes mentioned briefly in this book.

I say all of that because I feel like I’ve had the opportunity to learn about Native culture to an extent that unfortunately isn’t the norm in our country. Because of that, I didn’t expect this to have the impact on my feelings that it did.

I am so thankful that this book exists. There are so many misconceptions about Indigenous people and their history, and this book really confronts and examines them. I think the most impactful moments come when the author uses anecdotes he's collected from the research he's done.

I'm honestly not sure how to really dive deep into analyzing this book because I just finished it and I have a LOT of feelings, but needless to say I recommend that everyone read this book.

This book is beautiful, inside and out.
George Johnson narrates the audiobook and I highly recommend it.

Trigger Warning:
Revelation of a character being sexually assaulted (nothing graphic, just remembered and talked about)
Parent diagnosed with cancer



After finishing this book earlier today, my immediate reaction was that it was a 3-star book. After letting it sit in my brain for awhile, I think it's much closer to a 2 than a 3.

First, the good. I generally liked the progression of the story, up until the ending. It's definitely a slow-burn as far as the relationship goes, and I think that makes sense. Our heroine has just gotten out of a relationship she's been in for nearly 20 years. She's not thinking about jumping into another relationship for most of the book. For the most part, the pacing worked for me, but I was okay with it being more about her own self-discovery than a straight-up romance.
Also, for those who get squeamish at reading sex scenes (they usually don't bother me, but I know some people don't like them) this only really has one right near the end of the book and it's fade to black. For me, I would've liked a little more romance and sexy tension...but that's me.

Now for the not-so-good.
A little over half-way through the book, our heroine remembers that one of her father's friends inappropriately touched her when she was a child, and apparently she'd repressed it until she saw him at her father's wedding reception. This whole sequence of events just struck me as really rushed and awkwardly handled. It feels like it's very casually talked about between Laurie and Jamie and later on Laurie and her mother, and then it's just forgotten about and not brought up again for the rest of the story. It doesn't seem to have any long-term effect at all on her except for getting her to see that her father was a trash can of a human being who put her in a position of being hurt by his friend because he was too busy being a self-centered asshole.

I also thought Jamie's father having inoperable cancer seemed like a plot device introduced to get Laurie to go home with Jamie. It had absolutely no bearing on anything else that was happening, and for the most part the characters didn't even mention that it was a thing.

Then there's a scene in the latter half of the book where one of her friend's calls her and says that a man she hooked up with on a dating app vandalized her apartment. She talks about their date, and how he was a jerk to her all night and that even when they slept together he was kind of mean about it, and then vandalized her walls using tomatoes. It seemed like it would've been a moment to weave in a little dialogue about being careful with meeting strangers online, but instead it's again not treated, in my mind, with the severity of the situation. In the end they devise a sort of lame practical joke to play on this man and the whole incident is played as a bonding moment between these women. It just struck me as a very strange reaction to something that is really disturbing.

To be honest, while I enjoyed the set up for this book (fake dating, stuck in an elevator, only one bed...some of my favorite rom-com tropes) I thought it fell apart a little near the end. I didn't get the sense that Laurie and Jamie felt any particularly strong attraction to one another, and then BAM! They're in love. The very end was just really out of left field. She proposes to him after just a couple of weeks of actual dating, and they're kind of like, "Yeah, we're not really on the same page about what we want out of life, and we might decide in a couple years that we want completely different things, but sure! Why not!! At least we'll have a fun two years!" Seriously, what? That's paraphrasing, but it's pretty close to their final conversation. And then the book just ends.

I've also seen some reviewers talk about the fact that the diversity in this book felt a little forced, as if the author was trying to meet some sort of quota, and said that the fact that Laurie was mixed race didn't seem to really inform on her character in a way it may have if this had been an own voices story. As a white woman, I can't really speak to that, but I thought I would bring it up for people potentially looking at this book for POC rep.

There are so many moments and lines in this book that I really enjoyed, and I could absolutely see myself reading another of this author's books in the future, but this one just didn't quite work for me.

I really love this series. Dani and Zaf are such a fun couple. I like the fact that they are friends first, and how their connection morphs to a physical and ultimately romantic one. There is some fun banter and these characters have real depth to them. They've both suffered trauma, and while it informs on their characters it isn't all they are, and I really appreciated that.

I will say, I didn't connect with this one quite as much as Get a Life, Chloe Brown, and I'm not sure why. It's entirely possible I'm just a little slumpy right now, but it took me two weeks to finish this book. When I would pick it up I enjoyed my experience, but usually these romcom types of book are done in one sitting.

That being said, I still think this book is wonderful and would highly recommend it and GALCB to anyone looking for a fun, banter-filled, sexy book with characters who aren't cookie cutter in their looks, their experiences, and their approaches to life.

I'm so annoyed. 1.5 stars

So here's the thing. As far as I recall, I've never watched an entire episode of the Bachelor/Bachelorette. No shade at anyone who likes those shows. They just aren't for me. But when I heard that this book was going to be a spin on that premise showcasing a fat main character, I was intrigued. As a fat woman myself, I'd like to see more stories about big ladies finding love. As far as the Bachelor concept goes, I assumed (hoped?) that they would put some sort of spin on the idea of a dating reality tv show.

I was disappointed. As someone who has never seen an episode of these shows, I still know the format. One person meets 25 people of the opposite sex (because heaven forbid they showcase anything other that hetero-normative relationships), the cast goes on group dates, one-on-one dates, location dates, trip home to meet the family dates, and then the 'will they or won't they' sexy-time dates, all leading up to a melodramatic finale where the man or woman chooses their 'forever' partner, who they usually end up breaking up with 6-8 weeks later. Sometimes they throw in twists and turns like old flames and there is always, ALWAYS a villain.

This book did absolutely nothing to turn that on its head, with the exception of putting a fat woman into the role of bachelorette. Since I am already not a fan of the concept of one person dating 25 people at the same time, this was probably never going to be a favorite.

There were things I did like. This is told in a mixed-media format, relying on text conversations, group chats, social media posts/comments, podcast transcripts, and articles discussing the show and Bea, the protagonist. I thought all of that was well done and it felt very familiar, very authentic. I liked the group chat with the people who created fantasy brackets for the show and also the two podcast hosts.

I also liked Marin, Bea's best friend. She's not as prevalent after the 150 page mark, but I really loved the dynamic between her and Bea.

As far as the contestants, I liked, but didn't love the main love interest. He was a little too closed off and with the way the story unfolded, I didn't feel like we got enough scenes with the two of them for me to really root for them.

There were two other contestants who I thought were very sweet and huggable, but it was obvious that they weren't going to be the guy Bea would end up with.

To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't even really call this a romance. This is more a 'learning to love yourself' type of book. Bea spends WAY too much of this book mooning over some fuckboy who treated her like crap and buying into every negative thing she hears about herself.

I think that this book was trying to be celebratory of fat women. But I don't think it succeeded. There were so many times, especially in the first half of this book, where I just felt sick to my stomach at the way Bea was treated and talked about. I know that its realistic that there are a lot of asshole trolls out there who will say some truly vile shit to people, but I feel like this book is promoted as having a body-positive main character. And it's true that she does stand up for herself at times to pieces of garbage who insult and bully her. But she's pretty hard on herself too, and is very quick to doubt a man's motives because he refuses to spend the night with her after only knowing her a couple of weeks.

I really wanted to like this. I'm bummed that it fell apart for me.

I really enjoyed this. This is the second book I've read from Janie Chang, and I just really like her style. It probably won't be for everyone. This book's narration feels slightly distant, and I think that can make it a little difficult to connect to the characters, but the descriptions and incorporation of Chinese mythology is done so well that I think it mostly works. For people nervous about going into this book for whatever reason, the writing is actually quite lovely. It's not overly flowery or dense. The descriptions are lush and whimsical while not being overly so.

Some people may not want to pick up a book that takes place during a war. This book takes place in the late 1930s during the Sino-Japanese War, and the inciting incident involves Japanese attacks on China, but that takes a backseat to the main action of the story and isn't as big a focus as you might think. It's more about the ideological fight between Chinese people who are spreading the beliefs of communism at that time and others who wish to stifle such beliefs.

There is also a fantastical element to this, as there also was with Dragon Springs Road. I love how the author seamlessly integrates Chinese mythology into her books. It's not over the top. It's done with a lot of care and nuance and just a hint of whimsy, and I love it.

I can see why this might not work for everyone, but it definitely worked for me. The main reason this gets four and not five stars is because for me the ending feels a little rushed and I wanted a bit more closure for the characters, but that is a personal thing. I still would recommend this for anyone who is interested in historical fiction that doesn't take place in the U.S. or Europe or anyone who likes a little magic with their historical fiction.

3.5 stars, rounded up for an ending that made me feel things I wasn’t expecting.

First off, I do think there are some pacing issues in this book through some of the middle. It felt like the plot wasn’t progressing quickly enough for my liking.

HOWEVER, I was definitely sucked in every time I picked this book up. The tension definitely builds in the last third, and there are a couple of twists/reveals that I didn’t see coming. There is one that briefly entered my mind early in the reading, but I’d kind of forgotten about it by the time it happened, so I was definitely satisfied with that moment as well.

As I said before, the epilogue turned this book on its head a little for me. I wasn’t expecting it at all, and I think it opens up a lot of feelings and opportunities for discussion.

I was really excited about this premise when I first read about this book, and chose it as a BOTM selection in May. Then I started hearing reviews that were mostly lukewarm. Like, mostly 3 stars, saying it was cute, but not a new favorite, and I decided to hold off on reading it so I went in with tempered expectations. It just goes to show that what doesn’t work for some people absolutely works for others, because I had a really good time with this book. It wasn’t perfect, and I wouldn’t call it a new or all-time fave, but I loved that we were following two IT nerds working together and falling in love. I liked them as people, I loved their friendship and banter, and that we actually see them hanging out on dates and doing mundane things that people do in real life friendships/relationships.
I think if there is a weakness it’s actually the initial setup of these three women meeting each other when they all learn via Twitter that they are dating the same catfishing scumbag. I wanted the friendship to be awesome, but it felt rushed and a little forced, and also like not enough time was given to that dynamic.

That said, I think this is a super strong debut and I’ll read more from the author in the future.