This book was great! There are definitely things I did not like but it was overall sweet and very wholesome. There was one thing I didn't like:

Luke was so whiney. I get being paranoid about people finding out you are gay but he was extreme with it. He couldn't even say Emmett was his friend and I think that is ridiculous. You can have friends, even gay friends, and not be gay. He was just too much for most of the book.

Love story between an aspiring country singer named Emmett, and Luke, a country music hating cook. The two end up working at country music superstar’s amusement park and begin their relationship.

The story is told from alternating POVs and we get to see that they have their own aspirations to become more; Emmett wants to make it big as a gay country singer and Luke wants to be chef. 

 The pacing threw me off between the start and finish. It seemed like we spent a lot of time setting up the conflicts at the beginning and ended the book with an afterwards solving them.

Not enough time was actually spent fleshing out the resolutions between the characters and I would’ve liked to see more time spent on redeeming Luke. 

I really didn’t like him, and couldn’t figure out why Emmett did. He had no likable qualities and very little personality. 

 We also don’t see Luke come to terms with

his internal homophobia

, which was a bit depressing.

The side-plots seemed to take up more space from the main characters, especially with some cheating plot that felt random. 

We also didn’t get to see what becomes of our main couple; the ending is completely unresolved.

Do they stay together and work it out to be long-distance? Who knows!?

Overall this was an easy but unsatisfying read within a country music setting. 

A cute little romance with fun vibes. I was drawn in by the idea of a themepark romance, but that's actually a very minor part in retrospect. The bigger themes of country music in general and dreams and family were very well done. It ends up with the typical gay trope of one in one out drama which is not very fun but it is age appropriate. Maybe I'm old but my favorite part was the conversation with their Dolly stand in. I'm a sucker for older queers and tragic love.

Very enjoyable ❤️. I appreciated the honesty around the difficulties many people face when coming out. 

I love this book so much 🥹

This book is cute, has funny moments, has emotional moments and has a happy ending. What more could you want? 

I will say I did not like Emmett too much. I found him very selfish and only thinking of himself at times. 

Luke has my heart though! I love him and I loved his journey to finding out about who he is and who his family is. 

If this is ever made into a movie I think Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine should play Luke and Emmett 👀

I definitely recommend reading this!

I really enjoyed this little gem of a romance! I felt it was perfectly balanced in every direction. All characters felt very real and complex, and I liked the couple's push and pull together. This story excellently balanced the levity of a YA romance with the actual gravity of being queer and/or coming out in the US south (or US southern culture). The story also juggled a lot of messages, but they all worked together well; nothing got muddled or lost. While some were less important, the narrative reflected that and devoted just enough screen time as needed. I was also pleasantly surprised by the characters' physical relationship – yet again, I thought it struck a perfect balance of addressing the topic while remaining a YA story. Some of the concepts were a little cliche or twee but they were so well executed, I gobbled it up. Overall an excellent romance.