This book ended up being a real mixed bag for me. There's so much I really enjoy - the mixing of sci-fi and fantasy elements, the beautiful prose, and the interwoven narratives.

Part of my problem was unrealistic expectations on my end - the mention of demon pacts and aliens running a donut shop in the summary gave me the idea that this would be a quirky queer romp, obviously with some conflict, but nothing too intense! That is absolutely not the case - this book has a lot of heavy topics present so definitely check the CWs. I didn't, and that's on me.

In general, I enjoyed the way the plots of each character eventually connected. I also loved the uniqueness of each plotline! Some of the relationships were genuinely really moving - I particularly liked Katrina and Shirley's friendship. The descriptions of food were honestly incredible and I loved the passages about the importance of food and music to culture. If you're at all interested in the premise of the book and aren't put off by the CWs, I do think it's worth a read.

One of my biggest frustrations was that it seemed like all Katrina could do was suffer. I understand that the author was likely trying to portray a difficult reality, but it was very hard to read especially since those individuals events were never really addressed. I'm sure this is a reality a lot of people struggle with and recovery isn't linear, but it was just difficult for me to read. To be fair, other characters went through very difficult things that I also feel the narrative didn't take the time to contend with. Sometimes the book just felt like it was moving too fast past big emotional beats, and while that did lend leave me with a message of "life goes on, things keep moving", it also didn't always sit very well with me. This very well might have been the author's intention - bad things happen and we don't always get to unpack them.

I also feel that for the many, many POVs we get, I was often left a little disappointed that we didn't get more of certain POVs. Marcus, for example, only gets a few small sections and his storyline is one that I think would have benefited massively from us following him from an earlier point in the book. We bounce around so much that, once again, I feel like some of the emotional beats didn't hit quite as well as they otherwise might have.

I think that perhaps I'm just not quite the right reader for this book.

Not intentionally accounted for in my overall rating, but I feel that the audiobook narrator didn't do enough to differentiate each POV, so it often took me a sentence or two to realize we'd switched over.

2.75 ⭐, rounded up for PB bc I feel like not checking the CWs is on me.

I'm so glad to get more of Qifrey and Olruggio and there are seriously parts of this that just make my heart melt. It's just little slices of life and it just makes me happy to see them. There's no real plot, but each little story has a cute resolution, usually using food as a way to communicate love and caring between these characters.