okay i ADORED this!! which is wild bc i’m not necessarily an Established Relationship bitch, and this is basically 200 pages of friends-to-lovers “ohhh actually we were dating this whole time” relationship negotiation. it’s about opening up your life to love!!! and it’s about doing so while growing out your hair & wearing ripped band shirts & snuggling in your warm cozy brokendown apartment 🥺 also: driving to massachusetts, housing policy in the 70s, community gardens, eating soup in the dead of summer.

i found the pacing really surprising and delightful — she tells what felt to me like a fully contained story in the first half and then just. keeps going! for like 100 more pages! like, in the same way fic writers will keep writing postscripts for years after the proper story, just for the joy of spending more time with the characters. cat sebastian is my favorite fic writer alive. ali hazelwood wishes.