dododenise's reviews
402 reviews

Thank you to Frances for giving me a copy of her book. 

I was so excited when I heard about this book. A nonbinary and an ace main character in a romance novel? I sounded like heaven. Yet, I didn’t enjoy it all that much. It left me feeling lacklustre most of the time. 
Also as a personal aspect, identifying as both of those labels, Maeve and Loncey’s experiences were different to my own, so sadly it missed that piece of representation for me personally. But that is always a risk with these identities since they’re such a broad spectrum. 

The book is quite hypocritical. It keeps stating how Maeve doesn’t want her sexuality to always be the point, doesn’t want to keep explaining her sexuality, how she doesn’t want to make it this big important thing in this sex obsessed world, which is a feeling I heavily related with. But guess what? That exactly what the book did. It almost felt like an educational book on asexuality with all the conversations on what it is and is not. Most of Maeve’s characterisation and development is about her insecurities about being ace. I wouldn’t even be so bothered about it if the book didn’t also make a point out of how annoying that can be. 

The characters were kind of boring. I just felt little need to get to know them. And that is fatal in contemporary romance because there really isn’t that much else going on. I had this moment of irony when Maeve said that her conversation with Loncey are so interesting and the things they have to say are so insightful. They felt like basic stuff to me that really wasn’t all that interesting and just made it appear as if Maeve is very easy to impress. 

Then there is their relationship. Their banter is quite fun. Yet I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that it felt a bit cheap. That the only reason Maeve is falling Loncey is that they are the first person to treat her with some basic respect. That is too low of a bar for me to think that they are incredible for each other. It makes it more sad than romantic. Then there is also the issue with their terrible communication. I was getting so frustrated.  Especially because they both are educated on the topic and know how to have healthier and better relationships. Yet, throughout this book, they were incapable of listening to their own advice. 

When I saw how thick the book was I thought, well, a lot of things will happen in it. But that isn’t the case. The writing style is slow and descriptive. It feels like we’re going along in real time. The problem is, the things that are happening really aren’t interesting enough for that. At times I felt the author just needed to have them do things so they did some random thing that had very little point to it. Quite frankly, I come out of this book thinking if it were around 300-350 pages I would have been able to actually enjoy it. Now it felt like I was waiting around for two characters I don’t really care about to get their shit together. 

Something I personally hate is when in a contemporary book someone really believes in astrology. I never feel like all that much of a scientist but damn this book made me want to rant about how much rubbish it is. It would be different if Loncey basically just used it for their own spirituality to feel better, but they took it too seriously, even though they appear to have basic knowledge about science. The scientist in me wasn’t happy. 

I can appreciate the book for what it tried to do but I don’t think it was particularly successful in doing it.

I’m not sure I can find the right words to describe what exactly bothered me about this book, but I will try my best. 

The writing style made this book worse than it needed to be. It did it a disservice. It made things sound too simple. I saw other people comment on the book’s dry humour. I like dry humour, yet nothing in here was humorous to me. 

There was so much casual racism and sexism. It was jarring. The author choses to leave other people’s actions and words mostly uncommented. However, Thomas rarely ever says something about it to the other people in the book either. With the transphobia it’s one thing. It can be a powerful tool as a trans person to let the insensitivity look extra stupid. I didn’t feel that way about the racism and sexism. It just felt inconsiderate. It felt normalising and just made me upset. 

Nothing in this book goes deep. That is obviously a conscious choice, yet I don’t get that choice. It makes most of the content feel unimportant. It didn’t feel like it enriched me in any way. It feels like the kind of book a cis person would read so they can then say they can understand the trans experience, yet they wouldn’t. It makes me question who this book is for. For trans people all of this might be obvious. The dysphoria and transphobia would probably be confrontational. To cis people it wouldn’t be all that informative. To a transphobe, it might go over their head how bad transphobia is. 

The book just keeps on telling me things. Small anecdotes. Nothing more than that. That is, quite frankly, not enough. 

I had to force myself through this. While I could warm up to the writing a little more as time went on, I never truly enjoyed it.

A very cute book. Loved their chemistry and all the characters brought life to the story. Would’ve loved to get to know the other characters other than Eli, Ambrose, and Dawn even more. 

This was so chaotic and fun! 

A very cute story. Especially the pining and small little moments of tension had me giggling and kicking my feet, exactly the kind of thing I want to happen when reading a romance book. I was not overly invested in Conrad and Alden’s individual stories, but they were engaging enough. And I always enjoy reading about nerdy stuff.