nerdinthelibrary's Reviews (926)

Well, that was an utterly miserable reading experience. Not at all a criticism, but jeez, I'm gonna need to read so many romances to get over this book. Tiffany D. Jackson is one of the most intelligent writers currently working. When I was finished, I flipped back through the first hundred or so pages, and damn, the structure of this is perfect. I am being purposely vague because this really is a book you should go into knowing nothing except the basic premise of. 

Julie Murphy is just on the same wavelength as me. She always knows exactly what I want in whatever genre or age range she's writing in. 

This book really crept up on me. For the first 200 or so pages, I was enjoying it but was never sure if I actually cared. A lot of the characters weren't vibing with me and the chapters were too long and I wasn't sure if I liked the audiobook narrator, and I had the very brief thought of DNFing. But I love Red, White and Royal Blue and I own the book, so why not finish it. I'm very glad I did. I still think the chapters are way too long (there are only 17 chapters in a book that's over 400 pages long and, while I think the pacing is good, it seems bad bc of the chapter length imo), but Natalie Naudus' narration began working for me and I found myself endeared by the characters. I can't quite explain what clicked into place in the second half; it might just be that I had spent enough time with the characters and world that I had gotten used to them. I think it might actually be, though, that August had gotten used to the world and characters at that point. As she felt more comfortable among her friends and co-workers, I was too. It was nice. I did ultimately come away from this feeling like it was doing a lot of what Honey Girl did in a way that I liked less, but this book was still great and made me feel a lot of things. 

so cute but also super hot

GOD this part of the anime adaptation is going to fucking rule.