I probably would have DNFed this if it hadn't been a buddy read with a few close friends (who pushed me to finish!) The only reason it's two stars is that I really liked Wesley, as both a representation of anxiety and as a love interest. I really would've loved him in a relationship (and learning to love himself and others) in literally any other book, but the MC of this one just ruined all the rest for me.

Before getting into the MC at all, I have to say that after reflecting a bit, the plot and story itself also felt very jumpy and disjointed. The point of this book is fixing up the house and dealing with grief and loneliness, but there were so many sub-plots going on that made the story feel erratic. I normally love sub-plots in romances, but here there were so many, and they felt ignored unless they were the current focus. It led to a lot of jumping around (from the cat-fishing background, random multi-day treasure hunts (with prize opening that felt delayed solely for the purpose of a bigger reveal later, not a realistic reason), being a doormat at the old job, random trip to find the Loch Ness monster (this is a whole other complaint tbh), to arguing over a hotel vs animal sanctuary). While individual scenes here and there were cute, I was never really able to get into it before the story dragged me off elsewhere.

One big thing of the MC is that she has these daydreams that often pull her away from reality for long stretches at a time. The way it's written almost makes it seem like a health condition, or that it would deal with the MC being unable to handle reality so she hides herself in this comfy shell, but it's just handled as some bonus quirky trait? It was so odd because she would actively get lost in the woods while dreaming, disappear for 15 minutes during conversations, and just plain lose hours with no control over it, but it was played up as this cool personality quirk. It also got really old fast, to the point that I sometimes zoned out when these scenes would happen. It also ruined one of the major 'kind acts' of the finale for me, because I just didn't get it at all. (And I get daydreaming, but this was just so weirdly phrased and written). It seemed like the MC should be handling this super seriously, because it was intense and all-consuming, but the entire book shrugs it off.

But honestly, what ruined this book for me was the MC. She's selfish and cruel, she has no consideration for Wesley, and even after months of being near him and knowing the shape of his anxiety, it takes her hours to realize, in a busy airport, that it is not her that annoyed Wesley, but that he's freaking the fuck out because of how many people are around him (she couldn't even stop thinking of herself as the cause for long enough to realize this for a long time). I understand there are layers to the grief and ownership both these characters have towards Maybell's great aunt, but it was almost callous the way Maybell sometimes forced her opinion through, and worked to annoy Wesley at every turn (even if she agreed with him). I also still find it ridiculous and horrible that the hotel idea went through even when Maybell began to learn the extent of Wesley's anxiety and his aversion towards people. Wesley gives up having a safe space, has resigned himself to constantly having to share a space with strangers, and not once does Maybell even consider having a different idea or purpose in life (which is funny because she never had this hotel idea before coming to the property). I also found her reaction to

Spoiler

Wesley leaving her on the plane very odd, I could never just, keep going with my trip if my boyfriend had ran off the plane. I would have flown back immediately, even if it was 'his own fault'

. I was just endlessly frustrated with almost every aspect of Maybell, when I could have liked this book otherwise.

I'm not sure if I'll try another book of this author's, since there's so many other romances out there I still need to try, but I feel like there's potential in some aspects of this story. Maybe with a better MC...

This is my third book now from Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and I’m constantly surprised by how much range she has. I’ve had a horror, historical fantasy/romance, and now noir and vampires. If I had to read these blindly, I never would’ve thought the same author can write all these genres so well.

My absolutely favorite part of this story had to be the vampires themselves, from the world they’re set in (and how their existence being revealed shaped the alternate world the story takes place in) to the lore behind all the different types of vampires. I really enjoyed reading all the information in the back of the book that described their histories, powers, and traits, even if it was just like reading a textbook in a sense. I did have to read up on everything early in the beginning, though, just because I was having a hard time remembering all the vampire types + shortcuts of their names at first. Once I read the descriptions in the back, though, I was perfectly fine!

The characters were also well-done, as they all felt like they had real substance to them. There were no real ‘good’ characters, just bad and less bad ones, and I liked how morality just didn’t really come into play for the most part, since it was about survival for almost everyone. Everyone also really had their own motivations for their actions, which their personalities and actions were really based around. It made all the POVs quite distinguishable from each other, which is always so helpful in multi-POV books. I really felt like I was in each character’s head, and that they weren’t just the same character copy and pasted multiple times. It was so well done that at times I was so icked out by the certain POV I was reading that I was wanting to skip to the next chapter. Of the characters, I liked Atl the most (I just thought she was really cool!), and Domingo second. Domingo was honestly like a golden retriever puppy, and while I get the relationship between him and Atl wasn't equal/balanced in any sense, I did like the dynamic they had, and how Domingo pushed Atl (since no one in her past really ever did that). The romance was a cute addition at points, though I did care more about the friendship/platonic dynamic of their relationship more.

My only wishes are that it had been a bit longer. I really loved the world and wish I had gotten to see just a bit more of it. I don’t necessarily need more of Domingo and Atl, since their story feels definitively ended, but I would love more of these vampire snapshots in other areas (though I loved the location of this book, I just want to meet more vampire types!), or even just the same area + more/different vampires. The plot of this book, while wrapped up in the vampire politics of the world, was still just heavily a survival/get away story, so I’d love one with a bit more of the clans/gangs, more lore, etc.! Also, this book overall was extremely heavy and bleak, which was fine and did fit the story/vibe, but that did make it hard to finish in the end too.

Overall, I did really enjoy this, and I can’t wait to read another book by Silvia! All I’ve seen from her so far are fantastic stories.

While I've read a lot of books about competitive academia, whether it be magical or 'normal', I haven't read much from the point of view of an athlete/performer in training, especially not ballet. So for that alone I found this concept interesting, and I liked the idea of seeing how a friendship can evolve in and be shaped by such a competitive space (where only 1 can ever really pass). However, this really was not my thing at all. I found the setting itself interesting, but the story that took place in it just couldn't grip me.

First off, I just never felt connected to the characters at all. While Kate and Marine were friends, both of their POVs contained such harsh criticisms of the other that I never felt like I could positively look on either, and their opinions of each other bled into the POVs of each other. For example, Kate always called Marine young and naive, so you can't help but read Marine's chapters in that way as well. And Marine thought of Kate as boy-obsessed, which made me hyper-focus on how little she seemed to want to actually dance and more just wanted to find love? On top of that, I rarely got the feeling that either Marine or Kate actually liked to dance at all, since while they both definitely had their reasons for being in the program and trying their best, it wasn't for love of ballet but always for someone else. It made the entire competition to be the best fall flat, because they didn't want to win to join Opera necessarily (except this rang true for Kate later, but her desire for this often intermingled with her desire for some guy), they just wanted to finish someone else's dream/impress someone who wasn't there/etc. And lastly, both Kate and Marine struggled with a lot in their goal to be the best, but since their motivations weren't there for me, the struggles fell flat as well. Marine's struggle with eating rang truer than Kate delving into drugs, but it still didn't fully work for me because the development felt sudden. Their friendship also felt flimsy at the best of times, and I didn't quite understand how it had ever really worked out (their promise to each other also conflicted heavily with their individual dreams of winning, so I'm not quite sure how they ever rationalized this to themselves?).

Honestly the ending was solid in the sense that it concluded their individual character arcs and involved them finding their actual dreams and going for it, but it felt way too miraculous. Both of them just suddenly had solutions to their major problems and that seemed to be that. I also feel like there never was a good reconciliation between Kate and Marine, and the story focused more and more on their relationships with others near the end, so it feels a little half-finished in that regard.

Overall, this book just didn't work for me, as I feel like it tried to take a little too much on without necessarily having characters strong enough to carry across those problems well. I did enjoy the setting and the descriptions of dance were nice, but it just wasn't enough to make up for the rest for me.

This was just not it. Shout out to my buddy read group for convincing me to make it to the end, but I'm not sure if it was worth it.

I wasn't into the vibe of the relationship from the beginning, because while I like brother's best friend as much as the next guy, I'm not into this 'little one' dynamic they had going on from the beginning. It didn't help it was introduced from a young, young age so it was always just associated with their age gap/childhood dynamic for me, which wasn't a cute one at all (it was just Olive pining after Jason for years, getting rejected, and then being sad). I already didn't like the nickname, but then Jason uses it every other sentence whenever he's talking to Olive, so even if I did like the nickname, the repetition would've ruined it.

I like fake dating/arranged romance too, but this just didn't have any of the elements I liked of that. The pining was annoying and cringy, and after they get married, Olive is just constantly whining about the fact that Jason hasn't kissed her yet (when... it's fake y'know? that makes sense?), and it just leads to some really weird scenes I wasn't into at all. I also didn't care for any of the later romance scenes either, because I just didn't care for either character nor their dynamic together.

I also found the third-act drama incredibly ridiculous, and it honestly felt so thrown in there only for it to be immediately resolved. It did somewhat connect to the story, but at the same time not at all, and it just felt so out there for me. I also hate some of the things that were included at the end there for drama beyond the specific third-act drama, and I really just wish none of it would've happened. These two had enough to deal with without adding all this on top.

Romance books often suffer from lack of communication as a key to making the pining and angst work, but this one just felt so dumb at times. If they had literally sat down and talked about literally anything at any point in the book, half the plot would have been resolved.

I'm not sure if I'll try another one of this author's books, would largely depend on whatever tropes are included in that one, but then again, this one had tropes I'm usually into and it just didn't work for me at all.