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frombetweentheshelves's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
ekarptatham's review
4.0
Cute and quirky romcom that has an easy read style. Kitty really ground my gears and I found the tiktok references a bit OTT at times but really liked the way more complex issues were handled respectfully and wound into the storyline well.
accidentalra's review
1.0
You’ve already noticed the single star, so I feel obligated to be transparent here: there will be spoilers in this review. I can’t explain my issues with this novel without them. Sorry/not sorry.
The Gist:
Sophie is a romance author whose never-been-in-love status has triggered writer’s block: she can’t write the HEA for her upcoming novel, which is due to her editor soon. She determines to meet up with all of her exes to figure out what went wrong, documenting her journey on TikTok and hoping that it will unblock her writing and maybe even rekindle a past flame. Oh yeah, she also has a longstanding mad crush on her BFF’s brother Dash, who also happens to be her neighbor/landlord.
Dash is a former actor and black sheep of a major Hollywood family. He left acting to focus on his sobriety, although he’s keeping both his alcoholism and recovery a closely guarded secret. Clean for just over 18 months, he’s managed to stay sober by isolating himself, a secret craft-focused TikTok account his only avenue to community. Sophie has always just been his sister’s BFF…until he finally notices her one morning while helping her through a monster hangover. (If you want to avoid the upcoming spoilers, just know that this last detail is one huge red flag for my biggest objections.)
The Good:
1. La Rosa’s writing style is engaging—her smutty scenes are generally satisfying and work to move the plot forward, and her minor characters are well drawn. Had my Biggest Issues been handled differently, I certainly would have enjoyed this novel. So, despite mystrong fatal objections here, I’m willing to read another of her titles.
2. Probably my favorite aspect of this book was the casual inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters. That Sophie is pansexual is no biggie. One of her exes is enby; another is a BIPOC/same-sex ex. Again and again—no big, no big. They are presented as (gasp!) normal people doing their normal people-y thing. This is exactly as it should be. The seamless weaving in of these characters is so phe.nom.en.al that I debated whether to even mention it here. (Believe me, I recognize the irony of pointing out how much I appreciated the inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters without them explicitly being pointed out.)
The Meh:
1. Trope-a-palooza. So many other reviewers have mentioned this that I don’t feel much need to elaborate. I think the author was trying to achieve a meta-fiction thing here—a romance author encountering a series of romance tropes. Unfortunately, the plot points aren’t developed well enough to make that approach successful. This is unfortunate because it could have come across as fun; instead, it just came across as lazy.
2. The whole TikTok thing—I get it: it’s supposed to be a fresh, new take on the epistolatory novel. Except it just…isn’t. It immediately gives this novel a limited shelf life, not to mention that TikTok’s format doesn’t lend itself to prose. It was far too awkward to include as such a frequent and important literary device.
The Bad: Beware: spoilers ahead!
2. Cheating: Sophie sleeps with Dash after she decides to reconcile with her most recent ex. She even tells Dash on her way out the door, with “all her clothes bundled in her hands,” that she’s “attempting to make things work with Carla.”
Are you, Sophie? Are you really?
Let me just say that cheating is never acceptable. Not even as a plot device. Nope. Nope, nope, nope.
3. And this is the big one: irresponsible depiction of addiction and recovery:
Where do I even begin?
First, Dash’s sponsor Chris—how loudly can I write that a sponsor is not a bestie? And there’s no way, zero, that Chris is going to strap his own baby onto Dash’s chest, send him to a meeting, and then not follow up with him about it. I don’t care how sleep-deprived Chris is or how much he’s jonesing for a nap. This is not sponsor behavior. At all. There also won't be basically zero repercussions—including and most immediately Dash having to find a new sponsor—once Chris realizes he’s been lied to (even if ‘only’ by omission) multiple times.
Next, Dash’s relapse—I have no problem with the fact that Dash had a third-act relapse. In the course of the narrative, this absolutely makes sense. However, I do have a few major problems with his time in rehab:
There’s a soft implication that he wants to get better ‘for her,’ so that he can ‘be the man she thinks he is.’ (Please note that I’m paraphrasing here.) What’s worse, these implications go largely unchallenged. Even Dash’s therapist goes along with this, which is not something an addiction counselor would ever do, especially within the first days and weeks of residential treatment. No. Just, no.
Next, Sophie sets up a scavenger hunt at the rehab facility with her ‘I love you, so let’s officially kick off our romantic relationship’ at the end of it? And the treatment center lets her do this? On visitors’ day? Seriously? Because, no. No, they didn’t. It’s basically s.o.p. for addicts to focus only on their sobriety for the first year of treatment. There is absolutely no way that Dash’s sponsor (such as he is), therapist, and rehab center staff would condone this. Which of course means that the one-year-later Epilogue should have been Dash and Sophie’s first official date.
And this brings me to my biggest beef with the way Dash’s alcoholism was treated in this novel—he is never shown going to a meeting, not even after his on-page stint in rehab. I get that for most of the novel Dash was trying to ‘do things on his own,’ but after his relapse? The dude has to go to meetings. Readers need to see his character grow in a very specific way—and that means meetings. On the regular. And probably therapy. And a new sponsor. These things are non-negotiable. As it’s written, the Epilogue basically shows him being ‘all better’ after a year with Sophie, which dangerously supports the ‘love can fix addiction’ lie. For me, this absolutely kills the book and I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anybody. At all. Ever.
And don’t even get me started on Sophie’s tattoo, about which I will just say this: getting inked as a way to announce your love is cringey. Creepy. Ill-advised. And honestly, Dash—who faced a cringey, creepy stalker within the course of the narrative—absolutely should have seen it as a red flag. Ew. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
The Gist:
Sophie is a romance author whose never-been-in-love status has triggered writer’s block: she can’t write the HEA for her upcoming novel, which is due to her editor soon. She determines to meet up with all of her exes to figure out what went wrong, documenting her journey on TikTok and hoping that it will unblock her writing and maybe even rekindle a past flame. Oh yeah, she also has a longstanding mad crush on her BFF’s brother Dash, who also happens to be her neighbor/landlord.
Dash is a former actor and black sheep of a major Hollywood family. He left acting to focus on his sobriety, although he’s keeping both his alcoholism and recovery a closely guarded secret. Clean for just over 18 months, he’s managed to stay sober by isolating himself, a secret craft-focused TikTok account his only avenue to community. Sophie has always just been his sister’s BFF…until he finally notices her one morning while helping her through a monster hangover. (If you want to avoid the upcoming spoilers, just know that this last detail is one huge red flag for my biggest objections.)
The Good:
1. La Rosa’s writing style is engaging—her smutty scenes are generally satisfying and work to move the plot forward, and her minor characters are well drawn. Had my Biggest Issues been handled differently, I certainly would have enjoyed this novel. So, despite my
2. Probably my favorite aspect of this book was the casual inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters. That Sophie is pansexual is no biggie. One of her exes is enby; another is a BIPOC/same-sex ex. Again and again—no big, no big. They are presented as (gasp!) normal people doing their normal people-y thing. This is exactly as it should be. The seamless weaving in of these characters is so phe.nom.en.al that I debated whether to even mention it here. (Believe me, I recognize the irony of pointing out how much I appreciated the inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters without them explicitly being pointed out.)
The Meh:
1. Trope-a-palooza. So many other reviewers have mentioned this that I don’t feel much need to elaborate. I think the author was trying to achieve a meta-fiction thing here—a romance author encountering a series of romance tropes. Unfortunately, the plot points aren’t developed well enough to make that approach successful. This is unfortunate because it could have come across as fun; instead, it just came across as lazy.
2. The whole TikTok thing—I get it: it’s supposed to be a fresh, new take on the epistolatory novel. Except it just…isn’t. It immediately gives this novel a limited shelf life, not to mention that TikTok’s format doesn’t lend itself to prose. It was far too awkward to include as such a frequent and important literary device.
The Bad: Beware: spoilers ahead!
Spoiler
1. Penetrative Sex as some sort of threshold for physical intimacy: can we please stop pretending that p-in-v sex somehow ‘counts more’ than other methods? Particularly (but not exclusively) when we’re reading about queer characters?2. Cheating: Sophie sleeps with Dash after she decides to reconcile with her most recent ex. She even tells Dash on her way out the door, with “all her clothes bundled in her hands,” that she’s “attempting to make things work with Carla.”
Are you, Sophie? Are you really?
Let me just say that cheating is never acceptable. Not even as a plot device. Nope. Nope, nope, nope.
3. And this is the big one: irresponsible depiction of addiction and recovery:
Where do I even begin?
First, Dash’s sponsor Chris—how loudly can I write that a sponsor is not a bestie? And there’s no way, zero, that Chris is going to strap his own baby onto Dash’s chest, send him to a meeting, and then not follow up with him about it. I don’t care how sleep-deprived Chris is or how much he’s jonesing for a nap. This is not sponsor behavior. At all. There also won't be basically zero repercussions—including and most immediately Dash having to find a new sponsor—once Chris realizes he’s been lied to (even if ‘only’ by omission) multiple times.
Next, Dash’s relapse—I have no problem with the fact that Dash had a third-act relapse. In the course of the narrative, this absolutely makes sense. However, I do have a few major problems with his time in rehab:
There’s a soft implication that he wants to get better ‘for her,’ so that he can ‘be the man she thinks he is.’ (Please note that I’m paraphrasing here.) What’s worse, these implications go largely unchallenged. Even Dash’s therapist goes along with this, which is not something an addiction counselor would ever do, especially within the first days and weeks of residential treatment. No. Just, no.
Next, Sophie sets up a scavenger hunt at the rehab facility with her ‘I love you, so let’s officially kick off our romantic relationship’ at the end of it? And the treatment center lets her do this? On visitors’ day? Seriously? Because, no. No, they didn’t. It’s basically s.o.p. for addicts to focus only on their sobriety for the first year of treatment. There is absolutely no way that Dash’s sponsor (such as he is), therapist, and rehab center staff would condone this. Which of course means that the one-year-later Epilogue should have been Dash and Sophie’s first official date.
And this brings me to my biggest beef with the way Dash’s alcoholism was treated in this novel—he is never shown going to a meeting, not even after his on-page stint in rehab. I get that for most of the novel Dash was trying to ‘do things on his own,’ but after his relapse? The dude has to go to meetings. Readers need to see his character grow in a very specific way—and that means meetings. On the regular. And probably therapy. And a new sponsor. These things are non-negotiable. As it’s written, the Epilogue basically shows him being ‘all better’ after a year with Sophie, which dangerously supports the ‘love can fix addiction’ lie. For me, this absolutely kills the book and I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anybody. At all. Ever.
And don’t even get me started on Sophie’s tattoo, about which I will just say this: getting inked as a way to announce your love is cringey. Creepy. Ill-advised. And honestly, Dash—who faced a cringey, creepy stalker within the course of the narrative—absolutely should have seen it as a red flag. Ew. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
blueberryfaerie's review
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
lilly_springer's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
thebookishbrewnette's review
4.0
While I normally am turned off by books that reference Tik Tok or other social media platforms, I did not mind it one bit in this book. I actually enjoyed the way the author worked it into the storyline. Dash and Sophie were a great couple who each had unique traits we don't normally get to see in a grumpy x sunshine Romcom-esque book. I loved how some of the side characters helped to move the story along, but never become the main focus for too long. Overall a fun, feel-good read!
kat_4's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
madelineoki's review
5.0
Didn’t catch any crossovers between this one and the first. I liked this storyline a lot better! Easily can read this one as a stand-alone book.