As I'm not the first reviewer to notice, this is quite obviously Harry/Draco fanfic with the serial numbers filed off. Jack Gardner (Potter --> Gard[e]ner; hm) is poor, has messy dark hair and bright gr-- er, blue eyes, and comes from a shall we say insalubrious home; Theo I-have-a-French-surname-that-means-Beautiful-Mountain-rather-than-one-that-means-Bad-Faith Beaumont has white-blond hair, behaves very badly, and although rich also has an insalubrious home (his dad's abusive). They glare at each other throughout their time at (nonmagical) boarding school, have a passionate affair afterward, and then marry and have kids (three in Jack's case, one in Theo's). Drarry readers aren't going to be surprised when their sons are assigned to share a room at the same boarding school their dads attended.

Another reviewer on the NetGalley site describes reading this alternately as fanfic and as a romance novel and found that it worked well as the former, not so well as the latter. As for me, once I noticed the fanfictional origin I found it impossible to read All the Way Happy as original fiction -- which is a shame, because the early glimpses of Theo and Jack's time together in Dublin were quite good. I was drawn in and looking forward to one of my favorite tropes, second-chance romance. It'll have to be for someone who doesn't recognize the fanfic pairing to evaluate this as a free-standing novel. I gave it three stars because I do think it's well done; I'm just not sure how much of my enjoyment arose because for me, the characterizations were baked in before I started reading.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

OK wow I have MANY more thoughts than I had expected after reading this. First -- I had fun reading it! Second -- this is absolutely lightly reworked fanfiction. Third -- your mileage will vary, based on whether you are expecting to read a romance novel or a fanfic, because (despite their similarities) I firmly believe they are disparate genres.

So to start with my first point -- I absolutely had a fun time reading this! It was much angstier than I prefer my romance or fanfic to be, but that was a nice departure from my usual inclinations. I finished it in less than 2 days, & it distracted me from the problems of my life.

To address point #2 -- I don't think there's any way you could argue that this is NOT a reworked fanfiction; it is very clearly Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy enemies-to-lovers, second-chance-romance whump. It just is!! And that's not inherently a bad thing! And tbh I do think it would be a disservice to the text to not recognize that, because it's well-written and very effective within the bounds of that genre!

However (on to point #3), when I requested this via NetGalley, I did not know it was a reworked fanfic, I thought it was an interesting-sounding romance novel. And you might be thinking, Teddy, aren't romance & fanfic just the same thing? Au contraire! they are not! (Again, a thing that is absolutely okay! Romance & fanfic shouldn't need to be the same thing, because they fit different literary niches and use different conventions and craft! Neither is worse or better for that, they are just different!) And if I am a reader expecting to read a romance novel, I would probably be VERY disappointed with this book.

An effective romance novel needs to create characters with deep emotional lives, because showing the reader that emotional attraction and turmoil (and then using that emotional energy to build tension) is what makes us invested in the story and whether or not (and how) our protagonists will end up together.

However, fanfic doesn't do that, it relies on the reader's emotional connection to extant character(s) and their awareness of how characters are situated within an extant body of work(s) -- whether that's how they're situated within canon, or how fandom and fanworks portray them. Fanfiction can employ facets of the romance genre, but ultimately it relies on the deeper knowledge of the reader to get those emotional punches across.

And to bring that back to this book -- I think it's a really good fanfiction, but not that great a romance novel. Once I realized it was a repurposed fic, I tried to view my reading experience from a romance perspective and a fanfic perspective -- because I don't think I could judge my experience properly or write a good review if I didn't.

From the romance perspective, it does not create deep & dynamic emotional conflicts between the protagonists in a successful way. If I were reading this with no fanfic experience, I would be struggling to see why I should care about the main characters' romance, since there is very little emotional conflict (or even interaction!) between them in the main (present-day) timeline. From the fanfic perspective, it very much relies on your understanding the dynamic of Drarry fics and fandom's thoughts & expectations about this pairing in order to tug at your heart. It's not a believable story or conflict unless you have that fandom background.

I say all of this with love, because trust me, I wouldn't read an entire book if I weren't enjoying myself. But as someone whose main book-reading genres are romance & nonfiction (pls drag me) and who has been reading fanfic for over a decade, I don't want future romance readers to go into something they won't like. And I do want other readers (fanfic readers!) to be able to find something that they will heartily enjoy, which might even get their foot in the door of discovering how great the romance genre is!

Anyways, that was extremely long-winded, but I just had SO many thoughts while reading this. If I were rating as a romance novel, I'd rate 2.5 stars. But if I were rating as a fanfic, I'd rate 3.5 stars. And I absolutely had a fun time reading this. So all in all, 3 stars. Def worth giving a go if you're in either the fanfic camp & want to have a fun time, and def worth giving a go if you're in the romance camp but have a bit of HP fandom background.

I thought after reading the description and seeing the lovely cover art that this book was going to be right up my alley. Jack and Theodore are childhood enemies turned to lovers, now estranged, figuring out how to be happy in their new lives (post-divorce from their respective wives) and finding a way to be together again. And while there was some fun in the book, the highlight honestly being the erotica. Not even the characters of the book could really nail it home for me - even the fact (cause I refuse to believe it was not intentional), that the two main characters are Drarry stand-ins.

My main complaint with the book is how confusing it seemed to be to read at times. Hopping between three different stages in their lives - their past as children in school, their time together after graduation, and the present day where they are navigating finding themselves and each other again. The time skips would sometimes happen in new chapters, where the fact that you were now in a different time period wasn't mentioned until sometimes paragraphs in. Forcing you to then re-read those paragraphs in a different frame of mind. Other times the time skips would just happen mid-chapter with no warning which was oftentimes abrupt and in the middle of something else occurring. I felt that there was almost too much of an emphasis on everything that occurred between them as children and teenagers, and maybe it's just me but I wish the majority of the time we had spent was with them as adults and them coming together and the knitting of both of their families (Rather than the rush it seemed to be in at the end).

Because the timeframe felt like it was constantly changing I felt the pacing suffered quite a bit, being taken out of moments to explain in detail exactly why these characters are who they are and why they love each other so much rather than showing us. While the prose was beautifully written at times it often felt out of place coming from these characters - especially when they were younger.

I wouldn't say I disliked the book but everything about it was just ok for me. Jack and Theodore filled their roles well, but they and the rest of the cast of characters never sank into my heart. These are of course my own opinions, if you read this book and love it then do so wholeheartedly without my own silly thoughts on the book.