romancereadinglist's Reviews (417)

Review to come if I can muster up more coherent thoughts than “this book and series is pure perfection”. 

Just an incredibly beautiful, moving book. The central romance is heart-wrenching and lovely, but just as deftly handled are the themes of grief, family, found family, and queerness. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time. The audio performance by Petey Gibson is impeccable.

I never read this as a kid, not growing up in the US. I read it now so I could read James by Percival Everett. I found it alternately infuriating, charming and boring. 

My first time reading Maggie North, and this fell into the category of “good, but not really for me”. I’m one of the few people in the world who doesn’t love Jessica Joyce’s books (e.g. The Ex Vows) and this was a very similar angsty style. Like Joyce’s books, it is written in first person single POV which made the MMC a bit of a cipher for me, and the FMC’s perspective got a bit repetitive. The non-romance plot revolves around the couple trying to set up a couples therapy white-water-rafting retreat (!), and some dastardly rivals trying to steal their ideas, and it didn’t really hold my interest. But I do think Maggie North is a talented writer and I did like the characters’ arcs; I loved the bi/pan representation. So although I didn’t love this myself, I would definitely recommend it to fans of Jessica Joyce.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!