Adam and Whitney have my whole heart. They are both just trying to hold on to what they know, thinking this is the best way forward. Hold on to friends, family dynamics, a pinball arcade… and at the expense of themselves. (Though they don’t always see it that way.) I love their idiosyncrasies, their specific nerdiness. Like, I want to go hang out with them in Old City. 

 

Friends to lovers is honestly one of my favorite tropes. (I know, I know…) and I LOVED this variation of “ex-friends-to-internet-adversaries-to-TRUCE-to-wait-are-we-flirting?!?! Adam and Whitney’s past, full of care and joy, layered beneath all of their current tension was just perfect. 

 

It’s hard not to throw around the phrase, “This story has heart” when I talk about Eric’s books. Because… it’s the damn truth. You can just feel it beating in the small business community central to the book, in Chris’s (Adams BFF) “let’s talk about our feelings” Swedish fish, in the chapter epigraphs from The Art and Zen of Pinball Repair, to the little light-and-magnet contraptions that stick to the ceiling. 

 

Now, I have to talk about one of my FAVORITE MOMENTS! (which might strike some people as a strange favorite moment, but whatever.) 

 

Adam’s family runs a pinball arcade and he and Whitney get stuck inside during a snow storm. It’s been a while since Whitney has played pinball and so… we get the setup of the classic “Let-me-show-you-how-to-play” scenario. AND ADAM ASKS IF IT IS OKAY! And it is just as sweet, just as romantic. Y’all, consent can still set your heart fluttering. 

 

In addition to the characters and the sense of community underpinning the stories, one more thing sets Eric’s books apart for me, and it’s this: he ends on beginnings. The stories land in a cozy, resolved place, but you can just FEEL that wings are being raised, ready for one good pump to send them flying off again. It’s just an uplifting place to be in.