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An interior designer learns to rebuild her love life from the ground up with zero blueprints in this new romantic comedy by Ashley Herring Blake, author of Delilah Green Doesn't Care. For Astrid Parker, failure is unacceptable. Ever since she broke up with her fiancé a year ago, she’s been focused on her career—her friends might say she’s obsessed, but she’s just driven. When Pru Everwood asks her to be the designer for the Everwood Inn’s renovation that will be broadcasted on a popular home improvement show, Innside America, Astrid knows this is the answer to everything that is wrong with her life. It’ll be the perfect distraction from her failed love life, and her perpetually displeased mother might finally give her nod of approval. However, Astrid never planned on Jordan Everwood, Pru’s granddaughter and lead carpenter for the inn’s renovation, who despises every modern design decision Astrid makes. Jordan is determined to preserve the history of her family’s inn, particularly as the rest of her life is in shambles. When that determination turns into a little light sabotage, ruffling Astrid’s perfect little feathers, the showrunners ask them to play up the tension. But somewhere along the way, their dislike for each other turns into something quite different, and Astrid must decide what success truly means. Is she going to pursue the life that she’s expected to lead, or the one she wants?
I once saw a comment saying that this book (and the others in the series) felt like queer books written for straight people, and I can't help but agree a little. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying it and I still think these books are great as their own story, but the queer representation feels a bit forced. The over use of "women and non binary people" (we get it, you don't have to repeat every single time), everyone knowing everyone's sexuality (it's great that almost everyone in this book is queer, but why do they keep talking about it? gay people don't just talk about being gay all the time) and this one is more towards the first book, since I'm still in the beginning of this one, but it pisses me of how little the word 'lesbian' is used, and instead they choose 'queer' or 'gay'. Again, I'm still enjoying the story nonetheless, but these little things could've been handled better.
I'm so excited to jump back into this series! I loved book 1 and I'm even more excited for this. I hope that its just as cute. The synopsis sounded so good