I enjoyed this book and read most of it while at a music festival. It was an easy read with decent character development and a simple to follow plot. I really enjoyed the revelations of Katie and Wil's inner minds though I would have liked a little bit more conflict. Overall, this was a nice feel-good read with complex characters and a quick read to boot. Thank you for allowing me to read this!

<i>Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for this eARC!</i>

I loved this book! I loved this book so incredibly much!

It probably won't be for everyone. I mean, a romance about people communicating their needs in a healthy, productive manner? Who could imagine that. lol

This book was really unexpected. I love how many tropes this story <i>didn't</i> have. Don't get me wrong, tropes are tropes for a reason, they can be very loved, but they aren't going anywhere. And it's refreshing to to have something different, even in the framing of a second chance/friends-to-lovers type story.

Our two leads were wonderful. Tarnished, perhaps, but recognizing areas they sought comfort, and willing to grow. I don't want to spoil too much this early before release, so I'll just said everyone was wonderful, apart from the ones who weren't and were meant to be like that.

Any issues I have are minor. It seems to end a couple times, or maybe it's more accurate to say there are a couple points that could feel like endings. But from my perspective, that's just giving me more of characters I already love, which isn't a bad thing imo. Annnd...that's honestly all I can think to say against it.

5 happy stars.

It was so lovely. This is a lovely slow burn romance that was very hard to put down. It’s steamy in a way that I was sure I was blushing even when I wasn’t reading a sex scene. A beautiful mix of tension and feelings. I loved all the characters. I hope these co-authors write more!

This one didn’t work for me. I probably wouldn’t have finished it if I hadn’t generously been given an ARC. It leaned into the hyper-reality of a world where people communicate clearly and properly which reads as inhuman to me, but seems to be a trend in fiction. I appreciate how seriously the authors took abuse and recovery. I liked both of the main characters well enough, they both did feel like fleshed-out people, but their chemistry didn’t land. A lot of their conversations didn’t make sense to me and it’s probably because I am missing an internet degree that would help me out. It felt like it could have been a lot shorter and I wish some of the conversations felt more natural instead of one-dimensional easy statements about capitalism and gender that felt out of place and only there to make it clear that they were Good People. It falls into how there was no real grey area to anything. There were good people and bad people. There was no real tension because of how obvious everything was. There were positives that I think will make it enjoyable for other people. The writing was solid, I liked their setup of the bet but wish the tension of how they felt was held onto longer, and I appreciated how detailed the created world was. However, it unfortunately didn’t work for me.

If i’m completely honest, this book wasn’t for me. I felt that the plot had real promise and I loved much of the dialogue between the two MC’s when they were speaking casually. Their banter about the High School teacher that their bet was over was a real delight. However, I felt much of this book felt unnatural when discussing anything with the characters personal lives. For instance the conversation about pronouns at the beginning of the book felt extremely forced. I think many of these conversations wouldn’t necessarily take me out of the story if it weren’t for the characters ages being in their thirties. Overall, i think the romance of the book just fell a bit flat for me personally.