What a wonderful first read for 2025!!! Ms Atwater you have done it again. I love how these books are so magical with such whimsical moments of romance (the one in this book had me SWOONING - how La La Land!!!). I like their tight construction around One Theme that the protagonists confront ever so gently. I liked the little mystery we were trying to solve in this one too, & the way all the pieces fit together too, the whole thing is genuinely intriguing (thought would have loved for the culprit to have gotten more development,

especially as a foil to Abigail

.) Bonus points for

naming the red herring Mr. Red.

I liked how in true last book of a romance series fashion all the main couples were back for a little bit — I felt so so spoilt when fucking <3 JUNIPER JUBILEE <3 showed up out of nowhere (he feels papa’s orchard to me). Only thing I’m sad about is the series ending (tho I think Olivia Atwater’s Victorian book is set in the same world? And by the time we get to this one it has to at least be like well past the end of the regency so I get it. If Abigail and Mercy show up in that one I will scream (pos ofc))

Authors note made me go HELL YEAH!!! Olivia Atwater YOU get it. Idk if you’re 

I think I would have loved the experience even more if I didn’t know about a certain plot development. I’m not even gonna say what it is in the spoiler because I want everyone to read it. Pick this up!!! Even if you haven’t read the previous ones

Neela is kind of exactly how I like my insufferable characters who think they have all the answers — she’s annoying in a very real human way, like a friend who you know is being unreasonable about a situation, but they’re your friend and you love them so you ALMOST see their pov, and thus resign yourself to smiling and nodding. Rukmini done quite dirty tbh and I kind of wish

we got to hear from her after she disappears from the narrative when Neela makes Her Tweet. Just kind of feels like Neela Learned Her Lesson and Moved On without actually having to do the work. An apology is not a one-way street, and I would have liked to see what Rukmini would have had to say, how she felt about the whole situation.

Also did not fuck with the pov shift for similar reasons - is this the story of a friendship or the story of one person’s feelings about that friendship? Despite plot gripes this is one of the Twitter Discourse As A Book books that I think is a lot more successful in having its conversations and nuances through characters that feel like real people rather than full-on caricatures, and I like the additional exploration of Friendship and Jealousy rather than a strictly adversarial relationship! Not to mention I think it’s a talent to have writing this seamlessly readable while also juggling Big Conversations. Ultimafsly not sure if I’ll remember this a month from now but the time I DID spend with it I quite enjoyed. I think possibly my last read of the year?

Excellent & harrowing, wasn’t sure about it at first but that phenomenal second chapter told me why Han Kang won that Nobel prize & every chapter after continued to wow me. Teared up so many times. Wish I could have read it without the time crunch (im writing this on my way to return it to the library) so as to sit with it more but alas. 

Short story collections continue to not work for me but this one had some bangers, especially that last one Eloise!!

My ratings:
abacus- 3.5

history of the new world - 4.5

the ark of the turtle’s back - 2

how to survive the apocalypse for native girls - 4

andwànikàdjigan - 3

story for a bottle - 4

seed children - 1.5

nameless- 3

eloise - 5

… which average out to 3.39 but I’m rounding down because again. Short stories. Why do I never learn my lesson???

Good!! Good relationship development, good drama, by the end I was thoroughly convinced why these two belong together which is really exactly what I look for in a romance (somehow not all of them deliver). Wish I read it physically rather than listening to the audiobook but either way this was really really really good. Movie when??

I need to sleep on this but probably the best blend of action & emotions in the whole series? Twists and turns had me gasping and going :O? Cora & Ampersand mutually out of their shared depression funk, awesome new alien species (

Durian i hope you make it out alive sweet baby

), Sol fucking Kaplan of all people

making me go hell fucking yea when he for once had morals and sacrificed himself for all humanity and then lived

, did I mention how much I liked the physeterines?? Chomping at the bit for book 4 feat

Ampersand World Domination… and maybe him & Cora will FINALLY fuck

!! 

WELL YES I can see why everyone considers this a future classic if not a modern classic rn. Will say I thought the second half dragged a bit but I think it's purposeful in that you're meant to feel like things could get Worse At Any Moment. Kind of wish

the bacchanal, or *A* Bacchanal

was on-page as what we hear about it second-hand feels like it would lend itself really well to the literary artform though I guess it being

essentially a drug trip gone horrendously wrong (& sexual)

would be giving 60s & 70s literary fiction rather than 10s & 20s literary fiction which is where we're trying to stay. I love how every character feels so man-out-of-time and how Bunny is ALSO the man-out-of-time among them -- imagine living in the early 60s while your friends live in, like, 1905, and then all of you are actually living in 1994. Love the unapologetic pretentiousness in the most complimentary sense of the word. Just New England LAC things <3

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?

Mid…. Mostly because i did NOT like Prem!!! He was so fucking jealous when they literally weren’t even fake dating let alone real dating and it made me want to bash my head in… when she was making friends and learning how to play D&D with her failed date and he went all the way to pick her up bc she wasn’t responding to his calls (she had told him she was on a date btw, they weren’t fake dating or nothing, and if she needed help she probably would have told her FRIENDS or her SISTER not fucking PREM), and then when he saw that she was safe and having fun…. Still made her LEAVE the D&D session because he was jealous of the other guy?? FUCK NO!! I dont care if it’s because he’s head over heels in love with her he was so weird for that. And in general for being so insistent abt this fake dating scheme that she literally kept telling him would benefit him more and hurt her reputation when it’s done but noooo who cares abt that. Fuck Prem and fuck the fact that he calls his penis Charlie. Kareena sweetie in a better world you would have been a lesbian, the ladies would have loved your whole tough-exterior-take-no-shits-librarian-sappy-lovey-interior thing!! But is that not just how Taming of the Shrew retelling to? (Heath Ledger you are exempt from this)