*2.5 stars, rounded up*

I wanted to love this as much as everyone else did :( I did like Alejandro’s character, I found him dreamy and sweet, but I didn’t care for Deja. Her character seemed incongruous throughout the novel. Most of the time she was stressed, shy, and anxious, then sometimes she’d randomly be really spicy (which I liked). I wanted more spicy Deja! I pretty much lost my patience with her lack of work-life balance. Imposter Syndrome is definitely real, but Deja seemed like a flat character to me because we didn’t get much of her outside of her overworked professor mode. We didn’t really get to know any of the characters as people who weren’t academics.

The thing about this book that everyone seemed to like was that it gives insight into what it’s like for academics of color at predominantly white universities, and Jackson even says in the acknowledgements that this is her goal. I found that this experience overtook the novel and by the end felt preachy and repetitive. It felt like Jackson, who is a professor, was just describing her day-to-day professor life, which is why I don’t like when writers write fiction about their real jobs. It almost reads like memoir.

I felt Alejandro and Deja’s relationship didn’t develop much besides when they were having sex. Lots of sex, which is cool. I just wish there was more of a slow burn.

Another thing I didn’t love was that a lot of the language was repetitive. Deja had to have gnawed her entire lip off by the end of the book, as many times as she bit it. Lots of moaning and groaning and not very creative language that didn’t add a lot to the romance, imo.

The typos were actually the least annoying thing about this book, surprisingly. It could’ve definitely gone through another round of edits.

I’m willing to give Katrina Jackson’s other books a try.