This was a cute character development novel, but in my opinion, not a good romance. The time loop device was great for helping Noelle get over her workaholic, conservative, risk averse personal barriers. But as soon as that device was 'solved' (which took forever.....), Noelle became...very boring again. Which tells me that her character was BORING, and the time loop device was doing all the work. Lol. And Cam - omg, every time we saw things from his pov it was like reading a robot's diary. Ew! I enjoyed Noelle's friendship with Avery + her sister the most, and how she said fuck it to her job, lol.

Character personalities really do matter, because how they react to a situation (and how long it takes for them to 'move the story forward') impacts the pacing SIGNIFICANTLY. Our heroine took foreverrrr to move the story forward, and when she did, NOTHING messy happened. The hijinks were muy minimal.

Finally, it didn't feel like an effective romance to me because

1. The characters automatically liked each other and the 'barriers' aka the tensions weren't mutual, if that makes sense? Yeah Cam forgets her every day, but that got very old! We didn't get to see HIM pine or hurt.
2. Noelle's ex bf past that was supposed to be the reason she didn't open up her heart...was a shaky/shallow back story that didn't have me rooting for her happiness. Like ok she had a normal breakup!? The author didn't go far enough in building her romantic back story, and thus, the stakes felt run of the mill, I didn't hurt for her!

I like Olivia Atwater a lot. Two half souls was GREAT, and such a lovely light romance too. Similarly, I got behind the light romance in this book too - we have our heroine who is smart, stubborn, has a painful past, and our grumpy butler who's actually a sweetie. The only problem with this book was I got really confused by the mechanics of this "knot" vs. fairyland. Lol, It was REALLY hard for me to visualize and understand the main conflict. At least it worked out?

Hmm. You'd think that a mystery/thriller centered around a home for unwed ladies would have really strong friendships/strong female characters. Instead, those bonds were WEAK. FICKLE. But not in an interesting Brilliant Friend way. Each character had super unclear motivations. Like, was May a good friend? Why did the purple dress girl like May so much?

This book could've shined with strong personalities and relationships, but instead it was just an OK mystery with OK characters and OK plot. Sorry!

ENJOYED! This slice of life, meandering novel was extremely relatable. There was very little conflict, but just enough to carry the story forward (Lena, Ravi, sick family). I liked these characters and their youthful-but-slowly-aging friendships.

Our heroine and her friends loved to sit in the park, or walk around, buy a six pack, yap. That honestly sounded like...home, like heaven to me! The apartment-purchasing + eventual purchase felt like the disruptor of heaven. Do those mortgages and walls make us happy?? Do they take us further from our friends? Questions I still ask myself today...