A review by lezreadalot
Caught Looking by Adriana Herrera

4.0

Our lips touched and I listed from the power of our mouths coming together. I imagined that we were inventing a whole new way to speak.

This was so so good. The entire novella is about the fallout after two best friends sleep with each other, and it was great in a way that I just never really expect novellas to be, and I loved it!

I really like friends to lovers in general, and I especially love it when it's like this, really intense and where one friend has been pining for another for years (give me ALL the yearning™). And of course, the pining isn't really one-sided. They both love each other so much, and they have for years, and with not so many words, we get a really profound sense of that? That's always a good way to make me like novellas, to have characters with established backgrounds and feelings for each other. But there was still a good amount of on-page chemistry and energy between the characters, and a lot of effective prose that made me emotional. The perceived obstacle to getting together was perhaps "not a big deal" but I could definitely see how it could be! IDK, I just liked everything about this, and having this story with Dominican characters in Herrera's style was everything I could ask for.

The bigger details around the characters and story weren't always communicated very well (idk if I just missed it but did we ever learn why they went back to the DR?) and some of the materialism got on my nerves. Not Yariel being rich (we got scenes of him giving back to his community, which was nice) but just like, name dropping brands and clothes and whatever lol. For me, at least, it's a mood killer.

But this was really very good overall. A quick, sexy read that did a good job of distracting me when I needed it today.