30something_reads's reviews
740 reviews

Wow, this was such a gorgeous graphic novel. Visually impeccable. And the story is fascinating.

I found myself struggling just a bit with some of the time jumps because they were not always labeled or easily identifiable. (I do think there were some nice differentiations with the color pallets used, but, again, it was not always easy to spot.) I did find my groove towards the end though.

I'll absolutely be continuing this series. 

Lol no.

Could I have technically sat through the last 20 pages and finished this? Sure. But I will not. 

A sweet treat. Delightful novella. Best friends to idiot lovers is my jam. Big Russian marshmallows are my kryptonite. Making someone a special meal as a love language will get me everytime. 

Jason: "Jesus. You're killing me here."
Sasha: "Good, die."

Sasha is me, I fear. 

I would have read 260 more pages of these two .

 While this follow up did not quite have the same emotional gut-punch as Season's Change, I still really enjoyed this overall. Brody and Seamus are such sweet characters and their hook up turned PR relationship scenario is a fun twist on the fake dating trope. In this we get to see these two high profile professionals deal with the fallout of being outed in industries that are not known for queer allyship (Big Four Sports and Country Music).

Despite the high stakes of their situation, I do think there was a surprising lack of drama though. Maybe it's just me but I feel like there were some really underutilized and obvious conflict opportunities (like Brody's ex, hello?) that could have amped up the tension.

As always though, Nary has a wonderful cast of side character's that are so incredibly easy to love. I also adored the Benji/Olly cameos. 

I was actually very surprised by this in that it was a much softer, character driven story surrounding the relationships between man and beast. It was very lovely. I was a little worried there at the end but all is well.

Incredible world building for such a short novella (But that is not surprising).

I'm melting. I'm a puddle. I adored these idiots so much. My God. This is what I mean when I say I want slow burn. The tension and the heart ache were killing me (respectfully). And I loved it all the more that it was a friends to lovers slow burn. They were just so good to one another before it ever became romantic. 


This was nearly perfect and the singular issue that I had was more of a me problem rather than the book. (I just didn't love a very specific situation they were put into. But I understand it was also a dramatic kind of turning point for them. I was just too stressed out for Olly in that moment and I only ever want him to be happy.) 

I was ready to LOVE this couple because I just knew they would be so entertaining and while I did enjoy this addition to the series, I didn't love it.

I think my biggest issue was that it often felt like we weren't really getting enough time with Leo and Sofi actually just being together.

There was a lot of drama around things going on in Leo's life and there was drama around things going on in Sofi's life and of course they're dealing with Kamilah and Liam's wedding but all of these things never left time for just Leo and Sofi. And I feel like we really missed out on them establishing and relearning each other after their year+ apart.


Overall, I love this series though, and there are some really great things here:
✅Afrolatine rep
✅ADHD Rep
✅Chronic Pain Rep
✅Best friends brother
✅Secret relationship
✅Papo Vega's excellent meddling

Thank you to Netgalley and Mira for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

🥹🫶🏻

These characters were so sweet and I loved the setting. 

I only wish I hadn't figured out the who/what "done it" almost immediately. (No fault of the book. It just diminished my excitement for picking it back up.)

DNF @10%

I achieved what I set out to accomplish and that was to find out if there is in fact a cat in the story. (There is.)

I did not enjoy the writing so I'm going to keep it moving. 

I wanted to love it but there were just too many characterization inconsistencies as well as moments where I felt like the author kept beating me over the head with the SAME things

And there was way too much time dedicated to a side character (who is not the MC in any of the next 3 books listed so far) & it drove me crazy. So much time spent around Ramsey and for what?

But I did love the concept of "we're so bad at being friends with benefits because surprise! Neither of us actually know how to be normal about one another." The time we spent with Dean and Brody was actually very sweet. Just wish there had been more of it.