I should have written a review right away because only a couple months later and most of this plot and book has completely left my brain. I think that I liked the writing style overall, believable and fun, if the plot and emotional development felt a bit rushed because this is under 200 pages. I liked reading a main female character who was so nerdy and also very confident and no nonsense about her passions. I liked the representation that she was a wheelchair user, and there were a couple of interesting moments where she had assumptions about how Gus would respond or behave, but of course he was respectful and a great guy. Also the representation of his autism / any baggage he was carrying was handled well and she was supportive of him, I felt like they did compliment each other. This book does have the trope of 'we have known each other in the past and therefore there is a lot of reliance on that chemistry and history to build chemistry' in the current time of this book. It's not quite a second chance trope, but felt like a little bit of a shortcut to the feelings development here. This book is definitely part of a series-- while it made sense as its own standalone, I saw many clear references to other books and characters in the series. There was also a plot line surrounding Reggie's parents and maybe them not having faith in Reggie's sister? I liked that Reggie talked to them and kind of put them in their place about that. I thought the premise was a little bit goofy but have definitely read wilder ones in romances. I have zero memories of my reactions to any steam or tension. Reviewers seem to gush about how cute this romance is but I also saw many complaints that this book was too short and therefore too surface level and people wanted more depth. Especially people wanted more time devoted on page / just more pages to resolve all the family dynamics problems and the fact that the 'Anime Con' is missing at the end and the ending felt too abrupt and not wrapped up.

The first half of this book was quite slow, layering in so much footwork and setting up the town and the characters and fleshing out who they were and what their perspectives were. I felt that it was starting to drag a little bit just before it picked up, but I did like the writing and the descriptions of the town and getting to know our characters. I knew there was a rape in the book, I was surprised that it "took so long" to get to, but I think that all of the setup and exploration of the townspeople was really needed to understand how they then all reacted. Overall I felt that the strength of this book was being really moved by the townspeople's reactions to the victim and how her peers were an especially powerful perspective to see how these kids treated and thought of her too. There was a lot of family focus throughout the book as both parents had their own point of views in addition to Mira. There were definitely perspectives that I liked more than others: Kira, Benji, Amat. I did experience some knee-jerk reactions and feelings throughout, but I thought that they were generally well handled by the narrative and were often subverted. I did see one reviewer complain that they felt emotionally manipulated in ways that didn't make sense because of how it was written (one character is doing something where you the reader assume he is killing himself but then there's a bait and switch). A lot of people (& me) liked that Beartown as the setting was so visceral and it was easy to feel the cold and feel present there. I also saw people describe this book as having heart and very strong characters and many nuggets of wisdom, though I saw some people complain that they felt that there were too many aphorisms and that these overall felt cliched or cheesy. I was somewhat mad that there were deniers/ that ultimately I don't think there ever was any official legal accusation or court stuff-- this is tough to recall exactly after 4 months.