Even though the prose is a little detached and cool, I really enjoyed the dynamic between the roommates. A lot of the story is contrived since it seems specifically designed to be cozy. You see these men become friends, develop crushes on each other and learn to trust each other. I ended up enjoying a lot of the characters and their interactions and found myself looking forward to reading this book each night.

The prose!! The political intrigue!!! THE TENSION!!!!! Oh this was fantastic

Diana Wynne Jones has never met an eldest daughter, change my mind

i enjoyed this much more than i expected!! (maybe i’m just a sucker for a sports romance 🤭) but i truly enjoyed reading the character development our two main characters go through, of learning how to love themselves and accept that they are loved by others. i really REALLY connected with stevie’s story between body image issues and feeling never good enough (and her enormous love for dogs 🐶), this book felt so sooo personal 🫶🏼 i’ll be honest, this wasn’t a 5 star read and it’s because of a man! sorry! while i really did love his development, zander’s’ initial persona was a nottt for me but he started to show his softie side and i melted for him too 🫠i will say however, i wasn’t the biggest fan of how he handled the whole paparazzi situation (trying to keep this spoiler free but my readers know 🙂‍↕️) near the end, but that’s just my opinion! i feel like this was a great start to the series and i can’t wait to read more… i’m just hoping to see more of stevie and zanders in the next books!!