A review by brokenrecord
The Secret of a Heart Note by Stacey Lee

3.0

3.5 stars. This was pretty cute. The stuff with her mom and her aunt definitely worked the best for me. I also really liked her friendship with Kali.

Spoiler

However, it was frustrating that she didn’t listen to Kali about not giving in to Vicky. Like, I’m glad Kali dealt with it on her own terms in the end, but it still caused a lot of unnecessary problems and made me a little irritated with Mim.

The romance was… fine? Like, I didn’t dislike it, but I never got invested in it, and it felt like the transition to love came way too quickly. My other major issue was that I didn’t feel like the stakes of Mim losing her “nose” were high enough?

Spoiler

I mean, if it turned out she never would be able to do the love potions again and wouldn’t have any kids who could and the line of aromateurs had died with her, then… people would just have to fall in love the way they do in real life, which seems fine to me considering that’s… how it is in reality. It’s not like using the aromateurs was a foolproof method anyways. idk, there just wasn’t enough of a reason for me to feel like it would be a huge loss if Mim deciding to choose love over her abilities would have been that devastating an outcome.