I knew I probably shouldn't have bothered picking up this book since I was so bored and unimpressed by Legends & Lattes, but several people told me they liked this one more, so I decided to give it a chance. Unfortunately, I only somewhat enjoyed the first half of this prequel, and once it hit about the halfway point, I stopped being even remotely compelled to continue.

Most of my issue seems to be with the writing, because I found the characters very flat (which was also an issue I had with L&L), but the final straw for me was the forced inclusion of a romance. If you've read Legends & Lattes, you can already assume how this book will end, and while I can sometimes get behind a "temporary" romance with a pre-determined expiration date like this one, it didn't work for me at all in this scenario. It made me feel like every scene between Viv and the love interest was crammed in for filler material and I was beyond bored.

I wish I could love this series the way everyone else seems to, but I guess I need to accept being the odd one out here. Ah, well.

Thank you to the publisher and LibroFM for the audio review copy! All thoughts are honest and my own.

✨ Representation: sapphic MC and side character