this sounds critical, but for a book that's meant to be about romance, it occasionally comes off like an infomercial.

personally i wasn't a huge fan of the way some of it was written and how it handled the matter of mental health and disorders, which was a big aspect (perhaps bigger than the romance) of the story. i liked the importance of it in the story, and it explored something i thought was important to talk about, but often when reading it it felt like i was being taught things in a "—and this is what (psych disorder) looks like, and this is how it affects people..." without really exploring the effect that these things have on a person's psyche, if that makes sense? there were points where i felt like the story could benefit from a bit of 'Show, Not Tell'. if the book was going to be about the mental health—which, y'know, it was—it would've been a lot more meaningful at least to me if it could've more thoughtfully and personally represented it. specifically when discussing queerness, it felt like this was checking boxes without really exploring in depth the different experiences that queer people go through, more focusing on the outside effects and occasionally how the media will treat queerness. i myself would've really liked it if it explored at least the media's treatment of queerness in slightly more depth. it also, at a point, talks about the ace spectrum but doesn't ever explore greysexuality on a personal level, instead choosing to be a teaching/learning moment about Queerness 101. i'm not saying it was the wrong choice, nor should there have been more of an emphasis on the ace aspect, but it would've been nice if it explored it a bit more as a romance book.

otherwise, i adore the premise of the book. the way that the story progressed and their relationship developed was really engaging and there was never a point where i wasn't rooting for them. the characters are written really well in my opinion. not only the leads, who were always engaging and loveable, but the positive realistic depictions of women often feel so far and few between, and it was really refreshing to read a book that had so many women, even if they weren't main characters. i might be critical about this book but overall, it's a really good, smooth read with great pacing, fantastic character arcs and the ability to make me cry.

tl;dr this book does what it does well on surface level and has a fun plot with a really well-written and deserved romance. (the steamy scenes scared the wits out of me when they first happened though. had me clutching my pearls.)