3⭐️ I think each of these books is just a little worse than the last. I think it was a good call to end the series with this book. The family tree is starting to get a little circular. Riley’s step grandpa is the same guy on both sides of her family. Henry is both Teddys dad and Dusty’s step-dad. Sure all the circles are from marriage but it’s getting a little too incestious for my taste. This book (and the last one honestly) have a lot of weird grammatical and spelling errors or people saying things in ways that humans don’t actually talk. Not enough that it ruins the book but enough that it’s clear this was rushed. These books could’ve used a few more drafts. Especially the beginning of this one. It was pretty bad for the first few chapters. I think Dusty and Cam are mega cute and make a lot of sense together. All the high school flashbacks were adorable. I love seeing that cute innocent little puppy love. They seemed to still work together pretty well as adults too. A good couple. And i love how pathetic Dusty was with his groveling and pining. Very Ali Hazelwood levels of desperation i loved it. The 3rd act “breakup” was abysmal. why waste 2 chapters on it? Overall not bad but nothing crazy good either. I love Rebel Blue Ranch so I love seeing the characters i love so much interact in the background of a decent love story. One thing i have to mention is how similar this is to Elsie Silvers books. I keep getting the characters and stories mixed up in my head. I get that there’s only so much you can do with cowboy/small town romance but there has to be more inspired stories to tell here. Not plagiarism levels of bad but enough that it weakens the story.

2.5 ⭐️ Something went horrible awry with this book. I normally love Ali’s books but this was a major miss for me. The MMC is very annoying. I wanted confident sexy, brothers best friend and instead I got whiny grandpa. He complains all the time about the 15 years between them but then acts like he’s 13. Trust me dude, the age gap isn’t as bad as you think. The tension was still there I mean it was fine. Ali has the formula down and she successfully pulls it off but I think would’ve been equally if not more happy if the main couple doesn’t get together in the end. The MMC is so immature and incapable of acknowledging his feelings that he straight up doesn’t deserve the FMC. She’s great. I think the best parts of this book were the flashbacks. Such good chemistry and tension. I would’ve preferred a whole book of that instead of what we got. Ali says in her acknowledgements section that this was originally a Novella that was longer than she planned. This easily could’ve been trimmed down to a 100-150 page novella. This missed the mark for me and is now IMO probably the weakest Ali Hazelwood entry.

3.5 ⭐️ This was very different than what I was expecting. Not really a rom-com at all like previous Emily Henry books. It has a much more somber, reflective tone that reminds me more of Abby Jimenez than previous Henry books. I honestly think Emily Henry just wanted to write a book about family and celebrities and how being raised in different environments affects people and their abilities to form attachments. The romance was kind of a footnote. It was fun and Hayden is very easy to like but there wasn’t anything that special about it. It’s insta-love which didn’t really work that well. And the whole “we can’t date because we want the same job” thing just seemed dumb imo and didn’t even matter in the end so it’s just there for drama. I surprisingly really liked Alice as a protagonist. She’s much more memorable than the other Henry protagonists and has a very different personality than most romance leads. The best parts were about Margaret and her history and even more so, Alice and her mom. I am not embarrassed to admit I did cry at the end. I think most of the ending was unsatisfying and rushed but the resolution with Alice’s mom was very sweet and hit the mark for me. Not Emily Henry’s best work but it was something different and unique. A mix between romance and a Taylor Jenkins Reid style celebrity culture novel. It didn’t work perfectly but was still enjoyable.

4 ⭐️ I love Ava Reid’s writing style. It is so whimsical and descriptive. She literally sucks me into the fairy tale with her words. I haven’t read the original fairy tale this was based off so I wasn’t sure what to expect. If this was anything like her Macbeth retelling, it probably wasn’t very faithful to the original. I really liked the story. The ending was a little rushed but I really enjoyed watching everything unfold. The first 3/4 of the book is pretty slow paced and I liked that. I think Sebastian was pretty much too unrealistic in a world like this. I almost wish we got to see a darker side of him. Not that he was happy, but he was like too nice. I wanted him to be a lil morally gray. I wasn’t sure if I would like this story since it is one of Reid’s earlier works but she started off with a bang. This book is great, spooky, and straight vibes. If you like her other books then you will like this.