A review by emily_mh
How to Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow

emotional lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I loved how wintry this book was. I also thought that Shani being a dead fish nerd was a wonderful choice and reading about her experience in the lab was great. Seeing Shani and May explore their DC setting was lots of fun, too!! 

Unfortunately I didn’t click with the romance enough. I didn’t like that Shani and May were awkward around each other for the entirety of the book as it was hard to grasp their emotional connection and also made the fact that they loved each other within four weeks unbelievable. As the romance is the main part of this book, this a major sticking point with me. 

As a final note,
I didn’t love that the climax of the book was an elderly person having a medical emergency, essentially a plot point engineered to get the MCs in the vicinity of one another again
. 
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