Vibes: second chance (or first chance after you never took the second), figuring out what love actually is, the cult of celebrity

Heat Index: 6.5/10

Wil Greene and Katie Price grew up together–their moms were best friends, after all. Then, in their senior year of high school, they became best friends… and almost more. But Katie went off and become a super successful, internationally famous actress; and more recently, Wil has become known for a viral TikTok account where she kisses new people every week and posts the videos. Katie’s seen plenty of them. And now that she’s back in Wisconsin for a month, she may be ready to finish what she and Wil almost started all those years ago.

This is an overall lovely (though imperfect) heartfelt, funny, and sexy romance that sort of mashes second chance with friends to lovers, though like–were they ever friends? Or were they finally allowing themselves to be close to each other despite the burgeoning tension? It’s hard to say.

Don’t worry about the celebrity angle–it’s not that sexuality doesn’t matter here, but you don’t have a lot of “but what will the public think?” angst. Not that that’s inherently wrong for queer celebrity romances. But this book is focused on something else, and though I think it sometimes got wrapped up in the characters’ heads, it still leaves me wanting to read more from the Mae Marvel team (yes, that’s a pen name for two writers!).

Quick Takes:

–Okay, so I want to get something out of the way here, as the back copy mentions ‘Tis the Damn Season: how Taylor Swiftian is this? I would say, overall… enough to where, even if you notice a thing here or there, you can overall ignore it. The biggest thing for me was Katie’s cats, which she’s quite well known for having. And really? That probably wouldn’t have come off as Swiftian to me if not for the TtDS comp. So… while I get it, I do wonder if that comp will turn some people off. I hope it doesn’t.

–There’s actually a really interesting connection between Wil’s TikTok videos and Katie. Like, I was initially hesitant about the TikTok aspect, but the way it loops back to this connection between the two of them (beyond Katie being turned on by them… which she is) is clever. I appreciate that degree of thought going into it, the subtle character work.

–What’s not subtle is the way that Wil and Katie talk to each other! I was of two minds on this. On the one hand, I kind of like that right out the gate these two are upfront about being into each other. It dodges a lot of the issues I find with friends to lovers stories, because again… are they friends? When they admit that they at minimum want to fuck from the beginning?

On the other, I did feel like these two communicated a little too well. I’ve seen a lot of reviews celebrating this, and I get it! But there’s good communication that feels real, and good communication that’s a little too good to be true. This was the latter, though it isn’t too big of an issue. It’s just that–at some point, I was like “okay we know where we stand, let’s get this tied up”. It’s not because I wanted the story to end… But a huge part of any potential central conflict never happened, because Wil and Katie were on the same wavelength from the jump. Again, for a lot of people that’s going to be great. For me, it did slow the book down a bit.

–In the same sense, these two just like each other so much. They’re so besotted. And you get that over and over in the narrative. How amazing Wil thinks Katie is, how remarkable Katie thinks Wil is. And I would say that most of the time, that’s really cute and genuine and sweet and soft. But it did go a little overboard.

–There’s a really compelling backstory on both sides, and both are so real (in often sad ways). And in general, this was something I liked about these characters. Even when the sequence of events isn’t that realistic–Katie has done a LOT in her young years, even by super famous actress standards–the leads still feel real. It adds to their love story and the intimacy between them.

The Sex:

The sex in this novel isn’t that explicit, though I appreciate the diversity of sex acts and the way in which it was all seen as sex. You get about four-ish scenes. But beyond that, there is SO much sexual tension in this book, and it’s hot. I mean, a lot of this novel is about kissing, and the moments before kissing, and knowing you want to kiss someone… It’s delicious.

Was this a flawless book? No. I think there are still some things that need to be smoothed out, more of an emphasis put on the things that really leans into the raw and honest moments Marvel writes. But it’s a fun read, and if you want to read about two ultimately good women falling in love–this is it.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.