Okay, okay, it’s picking up a little for my tastes. Last post was from chapter 15, but after finishing chapter 20 I can see the vision of this book a little bit more. As a lesbian, I do wish I got a little bit more of Tandri’s backstory before this point. I really like the premise of all of these characters, but the writing is moving at a slow pace I feel like I haven’t gotten to know them that well. I mostly read character driven literary fiction these days, so I’m very used to slow plots that build character but this book hasn’t quite done that for me. However, I loved the tender moment between Viv and Tandri at the end of ch 20.

This is such a peculiar book because I was told it was a cozy low stakes story, and some parts of that are true. It is low stakes. The premise is cozy, I suppose. Coffee shops and friendships and whatnot. But the writing itself is just not screaming “cozy” to me. There aren’t nearly enough descriptions. Baldree just keeps telling me Thimbles pastries are really good. Some of the descriptions feel like something one of my freshman would turn in for a first draft before we did our “show don’t tell” lesson 💀 I haven’t DNF’ed it, so that must mean something, but I’m definitely not impressed.