The set-up for this story is quite interesting. Preschool teacher Summer has just returned to her hometown to start a new job when she is informed that her old school is supposed to be demolished in the near future. The school her grandmother founded. She is not amused to say the least and starts protesting with her sister. One of the people who are responsible for the rebuild is Aiko, the woman that Summer admired all through High School. They are on opposing sides, Can they still fall in love?

As far as the execution goes the story was sadly a little bit rocky. A lot of important topics are mentioned but glossed over in a way that made me quite uncomfortable at times. It felt like the side characters were mostly there to further the plot and the main characters' actions were sometimes not very plausible.

All in all I wanted to love this book, especially with the stunning cover it has and I had fun a majority of the time. However I just wanted a little more depth in the characters and their stories.

Sapphic romances are my jam. I went in very excited for this. I loved the premise of it. I think it had a lot of potential. Ultimately, This was a romance book with an extremely flat romance. The dialogue was off. The characters felt like they were being forced together in the writing (and not in the forced proximity way). I was begging for the chemistry but I wasn't getting any of it. Wish I could write better things but wish all the best to this author's future works.

*3.5

I liked the book but it just felt like the same thing over and over again. There was only so much of the same argument I could take.

I received an arc through netgalley

Summer and Aikos met In high school at a ball and made a huge impression on each other. They meet again years later on opposite side of beliefs on how an old property should be changed. I enjoyed following there story and watching them fall in love with each other even with different beliefs. This book not only shows a couple working through their differences, but also how family can play a part in your love story as well. I would recommend this book to any spicy romance lover out there.

✨can’t resist her✨
I fell in love with Summer and Aiko so quickly and was so invested in their journey throughout the entire novel!
✨
rating:4.5/5⭐️
spice:3/5🔥
I was so thrilled to get my hands on a FF romance that has SPICE, y’all! This book had a lot of depth in both characters and story line but did not lack the heat. I was so pleasantly surprised

* scroll down to read the review in english!

Obrigado à NetGalley e a editora por me fornecerem o ARC digital em troca da minha resenha.


Tive vários problemas com esse livro, não gostei dos personagens nem principal nem secundários. Não gostei do romance, não gostei das motivações, nem do plot. Realmente não funcionou pra mim de jeito nenhum.

Meu maior problema foi a escrita, os diálogos do livro são irreais, robóticos. As pessoas não falam daquele jeito, não faz sentido nenhum e falta sutileza entre os diálogos e as cenas no geral.
A autora colocou nas narrações alguns pensamentos em itálico que eram horríveis, davam muita vergonha alheia.

A construção dos personagens deixou muito a desejar, tem uma tentativa de dar um "fundo", umas camadas para os personagens mas não funciona. As relações interpessoais delas que é uma coisa que facilita e da uma chance do leitor se conectar com a personagem não traz isso, por causa justamente dos diálogos que são esquisitos.

Eu sinto que faltou uma profundidade sobre Summer, apesar de ela sempre colocar umas memórias e associar com os lugares pra provar o ponto dela, não conecta. Os primeiros lugares que foram mostrados pra a gente tiveram explicações muito claras do que aconteceu, um dos lugares que ela ama e que tem mais do que os pontos que ela defende ela nem sequer volta lá, que o local de bolos do casal safico sabe? Então ela passa o tempo todo lembrando dos vizinhos dessa loja e falando como é injusto mas nem sequer voltou pra apoiar um que se mantém firme até hoje. Ela compra muita coisa fora mas não se conecta com as pessoas de lá então mesmo entendendo o posicionamento dela parece mais sobre memória afetiva do que um luta social mesmo.

Como eu disse antes, os diálogos são muito irreais mas conectando com esse ponto da Summer, tem um momento (só um) que ela vai numa feira livre e ela recebe uma pergunta super tranquila sobre ela ter voltado para a cidade e ela abre esse monólogo sobre algo como privacidade e cidade pequena etc... O que não faz o menor sentido sendo que ela está o tempo todo falando justamente da proximidade da sensação de comunidade e tudo mais.

Sobre a escola no geral: O local foi comprado por uma empresa e essa empresa contratou a empresa em que Aiko trabalha para o projeto, então nem sequer estaria nas mãos da empresa contratada nem muito menos na mão do time de arquitetos resolver coisa sobre o público. Daí não faz sentido as cobranças serem sobre o trabalho de Aiko, tanto porque a escola já estava fechada à uma década por aí? Summer já era professora pelo que entendi e nunca teve toda essa questão de voltar e ensinar nesse local que significa tanto pra ela?  Não faz sentido pra mim.

Alguns spoilers >
Porque diabos Aiko se dispõe tanto em resolver assunto que, seria das relações públicas da empresa que comprou a propriedade, ou mesmo dos supervisores dela, que ela inclusive tem e é trazido no livro várias vezes?
Como assim a empresa que comprou não disse pra o que é que vai ser usado o local? Então porque a empresa de Aiko está envolvida sendo que ela é Arquiteta e o que no caso só se falta fazer é derrubar o prédio?

Não funciona, não foi bem feito. O final de toda situação piora ainda mais, porque a gente aguentou o livro inteiro de lendo sobre uma organização pra no fim ter sido muito mais simples


Não sei bem como falar sobre esse ponto do romance sem soar babaca mas tanto faz, eu tentei olhar se a autora já tinha escrito algum outro livro safico mas ela tem muitos e não tive chance de olhar todos mas até onde vi e esse é o primeiro. Isso não seria um problema se a atração delas não tivesse ficado tão heteronormativa sabe, são pequenos detalhes que é justamente que eu fujo de romance cis hetero mas ficou muito evidente pra mim aqui: Aiko basicamente só fala dos peitos e dos quadris de Summer, aqueles pensamentos em itálicos que falei que acontece nas narrações? Os mais vergonhosos são os dela pensando no corpo de Summer ou elas de boa e ela pensando "ela tem femme escrita sobre ela". São horríveis. Ela usando "baby girl" e "baby" gente, não sabe.
Summer também basicamente admira nela só o perfume e coisas assim.
Teve toda aquela cena que Aiko parou as coisas quando estavam indo em direção sexual porque queria "respeitar a Summer" além dela mesmo pensar assim, a irmã de Summer fica falando quão respeitoso foi, além de não fazer o menor sentido de maneira geral, a gente também não  está  século 19, no outro dia elas dormem juntas e a Aiko vai e dar uns bolo na Summer, cadê o discurso todo de antes?

Além, elas são mulheres adultas de 30 anos por aí, as reações delas são tão imaturas, a cena da Summer dando um show quando descobre o trabalho de Aiko é vergonhosa.

É uma leitura rápida mas estressante demais.


///


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the digital ARC in exchange for my review.


I had several problems with this book, I didn't like the main or secondary characters. I didn't like the romance between the characters, I didn't like the motivations, nor the plot. It really didn't work for me at all.

My biggest problem was the writing, the dialogues in the book are unreal, robotic. People don't talk like that, it doesn't make any sense and there's a lack of subtlety between the dialogues and scenes in general.
The author put in the narrations some thoughts in italics that were horrible, they gave a lot of embarrassment to others while reading.

The construction of the characters left a lot to be desired, there is an attempt to give a "background", some layers to the characters but it doesn't work. Their interpersonal relationships, which is something that facilitates and gives the reader a chance to connect with the character, doesn't bring that, because of the weird dialogues.

I feel like there's been a lack of depth about Summer, even though she always puts in memories and associates with places to prove her point, it doesn't connect. The first places that were shown to us had very clear explanations of what happened, one of the places that she loves and that has more than the points she defends she doesn't even go back there, that the safico couple's cake shop knows? So she spends all her time remembering the neighbors of this store and talking about how unfair it is but she didn't even come back to support one that stands firm to this day. She buys a lot of things outside but doesn't connect with the people there so even understanding her positioning it seems more about affective memory than a social struggle.

As I said before, the dialogues are very unreal but connecting with this point of Summer, there is a moment (only one) when she goes to a fair and she receives a super quiet question about her having returned to the city and she opens this monologue about something like privacy and small town etc... Which doesn't make any sense since she's all the time talking about the proximity of the feeling of community and all that.

About the school in general: The place was bought by a company and that company hired the company Aiko works for for the project, so it wouldn't even be in the hands of the contracted company, let alone in the hands of the team of architects to solve anything about the public . So it doesn't make sense that the charges are about Aiko's work, so much so because the school had been closed for a decade there? Summer was already a teacher from what I understand and never had this whole issue of going back and teaching in this place that means so much to her? It doesn't make sense to me.

Some spoilers >
Why the hell is Aiko so willing to resolve matters that would be the public relations of the company that bought the property, or even her supervisors, which she even has and is brought up in the book several times?
What do you mean the company she bought didn't say what the place will be used for? So why is Aiko's company involved when she is an Architect and the only thing left to do is tear down the building? >



It doesn't work, it wasn't done well. The end of the whole situation gets even worse, because we put up with the whole book of reading about an organization and in the end it was much simpler


I'm not sure how to talk about this point of the novel without sounding stupid but whatever, I tried to see if the author had already written any other books but she has many and I haven't had a chance to look at them all but as far as I've seen and this is the first . This wouldn't be a problem if their attraction hadn't become so heteronormative, you know, it's small details that are precisely why I run away from straight cis romance but it was very evident to me here: Aiko basically only talks about Summer's breasts and hips, those thoughts in italics that I said that happens in the narrations? The most embarrassing are her thinking about Summer's body or them nice and her thinking "she has femme written about her". Are awful. She using "baby girl" and "baby" people, don't know.
Summer also basically looks up to her for perfume and stuff like that.
There was that whole scene where Aiko stopped things when they were going in the sexual direction because she wanted to "respect Summer" besides herself thinking like that, Summer's sister keeps talking about how respectful it was, besides it doesn't make the slightest sense in general, the neither are we   it's the 19th century, the other day they sleep together and Aiko goes and gives Summer some cake, where's the whole speech from before?

Plus they're 30 year old adult women out there, their reactions are so immature, the scene of Summer putting on a show when she discovers Aiko's work is embarrassing.

It's a quick read but very stressful.

The dialogue felt unnatural and the characters were one dimensional. I liked the gentrification plotline and even tho i didn't like the writting i flew through the book pretty fast.

Content Warnings: Gentrification, loss of a loved one, and an estranged loved one due to being LGBT.

***I received a digital ARC of this book through Netgalley***

This book started out strong, with their meet-cute giving off major Cinderella vibes. Summer always had a crush on Aoki but Aoki never noticed her…until the night of their graduation party. At the party, where masks are required, they bump into each other and share a passion-filled kiss. Summer, not wanting to spoil the magical moment, never gives Aoki her real name. Although Aoki doesn’t have a name, she has kept the earring Summer dropped that night as a memento of their perfect first kiss.

Now years later they re-unite as adults and the attraction is still strong, the only problem is they’re on opposite sides when it comes to a building project. The school they both graduated from, which Summer’s grandmother founded, is being torn down to create commercial spaces. After years away Summer hates to see the gentrification that has already affected their neighborhood and doesn’t want to see it also happen to the school her late grandma founded. Aoki is an architect who just happens to work for the company that’ll be tearing down the school and replacing it with commercial space.

When it came to the romance I didn’t feel like I saw enough interactions between Summer and Aoki to really show how they went from mutual physical attraction to more. They each spoke about how attracted they’ve always been to each other so it was easy to see the physical attraction but I didn’t feel like I got enough emotions, from either of them, to justify them saying they loved each other.

I would have loved to see Summer and Aoki spend more time with each other and open up even more to each other. Due to Summer protesting the build and Aoki being part of it I felt like they were always holding a lot back from each other when they did spend time together, which left me feeling confused when “love” started getting thrown around. I would have loved it if less time was spent on the first half and more time was spent showing their relationship develop after the main conflict was resolved.

Overall I enjoyed the story and would really be interesting in seeing more books written in this universe. I loved that not only were both the characters WOC but they both came from different backgrounds that were filled with love. Although Summer had a period of estrangement with her mother she was still surrounded by love, and acceptance, from everyone else around her. Aside from Summer’s mom, neither Summer nor Aoki had horrible experiences with coming out which I loved. It was beautiful to have a love story between two WOC where trauma wasn’t the main focus and even though they disagreed, over the construction, they both treated each other with respect when it came to their difference in opinion.

I usually don't decide to read a book exclusively based on the cover, but I just had to here, this cover is AMAZING, and the book was "read now" so I decided to download it and give it a shot.

Ultimately, the book doesn't quite live up to its cover for me, if I'm being very honest. But on the other hand, I am glad to have read it, because it had its cute moments.

I really liked the romance, especially because they already met once 15 years ago and kissed, and neither of them had ever forgotten that. It wasn't quite a second chance romance, because they never dated, but it was still really nice to see them reconnect.

I just didn't feel quite as invested as i would have liked, which I think is mostly due to the writing. I actually really liked the descriptions, because they were very clear and very vivid and really worked to set the scene. But the dialogue fell really flat for me, because it felt really forced and unnatural. Dialogue is super important for me to enjoy a romance, so this kind of took me out of it.

When I started this book, I had extremely high expectations- the cover was cute and the premise and blurb was solid and interesting.

However, the book fell really short for me. The dialogues were so unrealistic- I can't imagine anyone talking like that ever. The writing was clunky too, which is a shame because I tried really hard to like it!
i couldn't even like any of the characters- they sound great on paper but they just did not make me like them. i wish there was more to developing them and their romance/chemistry, especially considering that this is a contemporary romance

I hope that by the time the book is published, the author works on these, because, like I said, the premise holds a lot of promise!

I thought this book was overall okay and liked the storyline that was presented, but it did fall a little flat with the dialogue, which felt really stilted and awkward at times. I had a hard time connecting to the characters and romance really at all but found that this book had its strong suit in the passionate storytelling about gentrification and communities. I didn't love how insta-lovey this felt, even though the characters had known of each other for years. I also thought the writing was a bit lacking, especially because it lacks a lot of nuances and does a lot of telling instead of showing. overall this wasn't a BAD book, but it did lack a lot of things I would consider to make a good book. I think it has great bones to be a good story but could benefit from another round of editing and more fleshed-out characters.

Thank you netgalley for an arc, here is my honest review.
Dnf 50%

I was so excited to find another book about two black queer women, but sadly everything about this fell flat for me.

One of my main cons with this book is the dialogue and how bad it was. The characters are one-dimensional and I didn’t feel any chemistry between them, which made the romance the worst part of the book.

This could have been an amazing book, but from the writing and how the characters are written, I was disappointed.

This sweet summer romance switches viewpoints between the two women, Aiko and Summer, as their relationship develops. Aiko and Summer are really cute together in the story, and the story not only follows their love, but also weaves together themes about family, community, and values. This story is definitely full of tropes: the story begins with a Cinderella moment in Summer's lost earring from the night she kissed Aiko, and it only gets better. Perhaps you've read romance between an activist and person at a corporation they are protesting, now get ready for that, but with lesbians! I received an ARC of this book through Netgalley.

I am so glad that more and more books are being published that give voice to those previously underrepresented.

The concept of this was great. A sapphic romance between two women who were once class mates and are reunited in adulthood. There was a lot of sweetness and some really great scenes of intimacy. Was also interesting to see how they navigated their conflicts. Both the main characters had such differing views but seemed determined not to let that ruin their budding relationship.

Unfortunately, I struggled somewhat to really get into it and feel the romance. It didn’t grab me as much as I wanted it to. Maybe it needed to be more slow burn for me. I do think some of the dialogue could be more natural sounding, it didn’t always feel like how people actually talk to each other.

There was a lot of good in this and it was a really easy read. Great for some romance escapism.

An incredibly heart-warming read! Can't Resist Her really took me by surprise; all the characters were loveable and I especially loved the writing style. I also loved the Cinderella-esque feel - the prom was the ball where Cinderella hid her identity for one night of fun and then left behind a shoe - or, in this case, an earring - for her one true love. OBSESSE.

But a stand out moment for me was actually in Chapter One when Summer visits Swingin' Sweets and we're introduced to Nellie and Kat - 'Summer could only smile as she watched the two of them. Growing up, she hadn't seen many loving couples around town - not that looked like them. And even though she hadn't fully known herself as an awkward, shy teen, she'd felt a certain lightness, a peace, whenever she saw the two bakers together.' For me, this passage really captured that awkward teenage feeling where you're on the cusp of discovering who you are and you start to realise that there is a place where you belong.

Overall, I loved, loved, loved this. Definitely going to be returning to both book and author in the future!

In general, I did like the book. I thought it was cute and sweet, and that the tension was delightful and fun. I also really love when a romance centers a couple that doesn't get featured in much mainstream media.

ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (less)

3.5 stars for me! I really enjoyed this story and getting to know Aiko and Summer. These two have to determine what is most important to them, and how to stay true to themselves even if that means falling for someone who doesn't quite agree. One of my favorite characters was Peaches, and I would have loved to learn a bit more about Aiko's relationship with her.

One of the reasons I didn't give a full four stars is because I found the descriptions in this story to be a bit distracting instead of adding to the story, some felt like they were not helping the story move along.

•the dialogue is very clunky and doesn’t really sound like how real people talk

•the writing itself is very sparse and sometimes that can be a good thing but it makes this book feel as though it has no personality of its own. the prose is very dull and the writing style leans more on the side of yelling rather than showing.
•on the plus side, however, i read this whole thing a lot quicker than i usually read any book. it was very easy to get through.

•the characters themselves fell very flat and one-dimensional. the mc’s and the side characters all had their own backstories and motivations but in execution they didn’t feel very believable. if i had to pick a favorite out of all of them it would be aiko, i think she was the most well-written and even though she’s a capitalist and is pro gentrification, she’s sexy. i also adore the two married lesbians that run that little bakery that we meet in the very first chapter, they brought me so much joy.
•I really enjoyed how the author portrayed aiko as a more masculine leaning lesbian. it’s obviously not my place to speak on the representation of black lesbians seeing as i, myself, am not black, but i can say that she very accurately portrayed the tenderness that masc lesbians bring into a relationship. even if the relationship wasn’t my favorite thing in this book…

•speaking of favorite things in this book, i really like the whole gentrification plotline and how it’s portrayed. i’ve grown up in neighborhoods that were radically gentrified and as a result of the changing economic climate, schools close or are shut down. the rich people doing the gentrifying always portray it as a good thing, a positive development for the community, until the locals and people who have been living and working there for over twenty years can no longer afford to and are displaced. and when schools are shut down in areas like this, it never benefits the students that live there. often times they’re forced to go to schools out of their district and aren’t given the treatment and the education they deserve because of it.
•this is why i really liked summer’s outlook on her job as an educator and how she treated the children she was working with.

•i do think that the book could’ve been written a lot better, the prose could be filled out more instead of being so rudimentary and the characters could’ve been developed a lot better, but i also think the main conflict of the story is genuinely interesting. the romance definitely fell short for me personally, however, and considering this is a contemporary romance novel that doesn’t really bode well. i am interested to see how all of this is improved upon more edits and publication.

•regarding the romance, i was kind of bored with it tbh. the main plotline was a lot more interesting to me and because the characters weren’t as fleshed-out as i would have preferred i just wasn’t very invested in the relationship.

•overall, i think the main plotline was 100% more interesting than everything else that happened in the book and that the characters, prose, and dialogue need a lot of work. nevertheless, it was a quick read and i did enjoy it. definitely going to read it again upon publication.

𝗿𝗲𝗽: black lesbian main character, biracial lesbian main character (black and japanese), black sapphic side characters, black side characters

DNF at 43%

I picked this up because the blurb looked great and the cover was amazing, but the book wasn't for me. I didn't enjoy the writing, and the only character I liked was Summer. I tried to keep reading but I wasn't enjoying it.

Thanks to the publisher for the advance review copy!

This was a super cute sapphic romance which I devoured in one sitting. I loved the characters, the plot and the romance