Thanks to Penguin for inviting me to read this title early!!!

I enjoyed this a ton more than I expected to! I was in a bit of a slump when I started reading it and I worried that this one would fall victim to it because at the beginning, I wasn't sold. It didn't hook me immediately but I'm really glad I kept going. This was a really tender and thoughtful exploration of trauma and the way it impacts everything around it like a ripple effect and how hard it is to break free from it.

The focus in this book is entirely on the characters and their dynamics--there's kind of a plot, sure, but it's so far behind what's actually interesting about the story. I'm older than Charlotte is, but we're still within the same age category and being in her head felt almost like a HIPAA violation because why did my therapist tell you all that, Ella? Apparently I've never had a unique experience ever.

The romance was so delightful and I loved following Charlotte through the weekend as she rediscovered herself and her friends and what everyone meant to each other. I also REALLY loved the incorporation of the color chart to reflect emotions; it made everything feel so vivid and really helped me put myself where Charlotte was emotionally.

Finally, the "conflict" within the romance was so fresh compared to almost every single other romance I've ever read. Trust me. It's good.

But How Are You, Really by Ella Dawson was a very entertaining read and enjoyed my time with it. I loved, loved, loved the bi representation and always love it when I see that in books. The characters felt like real people, which is something I always appreciate it. But How Are You, Really does cover some serious topics and I wasn't really expecting it but I appreciated it. The writing was well done and I felt like it kept me hooked the entire time while reading it. Overall, a good book.

With a strong premise, the debut certainly has its shining moments. There’s a wonderfully queer and diverse cast of characters, the burnout millennial vibes are scarily accurate, and the ending climax and take down of a villain has me evil grinning.

That said, I found the main character, Charlotte, very exhausting. I think that in an effort to really drive home the burnout millennial angle, the author forgot to make Charlotte a meaningful or memorable character. She’s more of a symbol for millennial exhaustion and feeling like you didn’t meet those post college expectations. Being inside her head made me quickly run out of patience with her because time and again she refuses to do anything to address any one of her many problems and issues. She blows off her friends, she blows off work DMs too though, she’s hot and cold with her ex who she knows she left high and dry, she refuses to get help for her trauma. Personally I struggle with people who do nothing but complain and sadly that’s all Charlotte does.

While I thought the toxic and abusive relationship themes were handled respectfully, I did struggle to understand charlotte’s arc because she so steadfastly refuses anyone’s help yet clearly her trauma is still so crippling. It’s just like watching a car wreck but far too drawn out.

The romance element was fine though it felt more driven by sex and lust than actual intimacy. Everytime Charlotte would see the love interest she immediately reminisced about very graphic sexual events yet constantly brushed aside true affection and intimacy. It was jarring and didn’t execute well to make it seem like a really fleshed out and thought out romance.

Lastly, the pacing in general was very inconsistent. The first 30% features virtually no movement, just a loooooooot of talk about how shitty charlotte’s life is and her doing nothing about it. Then the middle starts to get a bit interesting as we dive deeper on Charlotte’s issues and trauma, but then it practically halts until the end.

Ultimately this felt like an ambitious debut with the focus split between the various emotional scars and backstory, and the main romance element. I do wish the romance was cut entirely to make charlotte and her arc really shine but I suspect the romance element was meant to make this appeal more. I’ve seen this marketed as a hockey romance which it certainly IS NOT. The love interest played hockey in college, and not even at a prestigious level to go pro. In the current timeline absolutely no one is an athlete. So all in all, I think the marketing sets readers up for the wrong impression.

thank you netgalley and dutton for the arc! this book was a bit of a heavier read than i anticipated- i do wish i had read some of the trigger warnings ahead of time, however the message of the book was great. it served as that oh so important reminder that it is okay to ask for help. this book was one i had to read in small bites so i didn’t overwhelmed myself with the story. i loved charlotte’s friends in the book and the way those friendships were portrayed, it was evident that they cared deeply about one another. they were a great support system to charlotte. i will say i wasn’t sure how i felt about charlotte at first, she started out a bit annoying with her woe is me nonsense however i did enjoy seeing her development throughout the book. i understand the struggles expressed with the feelings of being broken and unloved, those resonated with me a lot. she came a very long way from the start. i do always love the quality bisexual mc representation! what i almost loved even more was the fact this book did NOT have a miscommunication trope!! truly a massive win! i loved the chosen family and second chance lovers trope! this book was a solid read! for me i definitely had to be in the proper headspace and mood to read it but overall good!

Loved the characters and the bi representation and the sex scenes were fresh and tangy!
I also thought it was smart to place this in 2018, without the specter of Covid
The structure of the book didn't always work for me. We end up spending so much time in Charlotte's head in past and present, and the space between actual conversations and events stretched out too long at times.
Reminds me of a slightly less polished "Old Enough" - for a debut novel the voice is absolutely here though, and I think the next book will be tighter!

Review: But How Are You, Really By Ella Dawson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the opportunity to read this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

But How Are You, Really follows Charlotte, a 27 year old cis-gender woman as she attends her 5 year college reunion. She is reunited with a group of her good friends, has run-ins with 2 different ex-boyfriends, and is faced with the difficult reality that life after graduation isn’t living up to her expectations.

This book hit very close to home for me, as a 26 year old woman who is also struggling to juggle job security with the desire for a more fulfilling career path. I loved the LGBTQIA+ representation as well as Dawsons’s intentional focus on depicting safe and consensual sex acts. Dawson also built hot and steamy sexual tension between the two romantic leads in a way that felt authentic and not like instant lust.

This book contains triggers for those who have experienced abusive relationships, unhealthy work environments, panic attacks, loss of a parent, and absent/unsupportive parents. I had an emotional reaction to reading the parts of Charlotte’s story that had similarities to my past, partly because I felt very seen and represented in a way I hadn’t read before.

I can’t wait to read more from Ella Dawson in the future! But How Are You, Really will be published June 3rd 2024!

This book has all of the romance but with a broad lens. Addressing disappointing family and found family within the queer community, trauma, domestic abuse, addiction, grief etc, with a heartwarming central story is not easy. Very impressive.

I'm going to preface this review with I went into it thinking the relationship between Charlotte and Reece was WLW, but Reece is a male character! This is not bad thing, but I did go in with an expectation that wasn't met.

All in all, I'm glad I read this book! As someone just a couple of years past (what would have been) their 5 year college reunion. Someone who feels a little lost in life and working in entertainment, it was nice to not feel so alone. I did find myself rooting for Charlotte, I wanted her to succeed. I wanted her to reconnect with her friends and find love. I will say the romance took a backseat in book. If you're looking for straight romance, this is not for you. If you feel lost and burnt out, looking for a little escape this might just be the next book you should pick up.

Thank you to Penguin Random House and NetGalley for an advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I really wanted to like this debut, I really did. As a graduate of a similar liberal arts institution as Hein, with a similarly nostalgia-obsessed reunion culture, I REALLY wished I liked this book. Alas, the premise could not rescue the book from the twin anchors of bad writing (like, so painfully awkward prose) and poor characterizations. These aren't characters, they are archetypes — and stereotypical archetypes. I can clearly see what the writer was attempting to do, but execution, and perhaps the ability, just isn't there. A slog to finish, and very unsatisfying,

Charlotte goes back to her alma mater for her 5 year reunion weekend. There's romance, there's a work disaster, there's a ex sighting.

Many thanks to Penguin Random House and Netgalley for an advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I was excited to pick up this debut for its LGBTQ+ cast of characters along mentions of mental health and job burnout and its unique setting of a college reunion. While the book touches upon all of these things, most of it was only at the surface level. The setting could have been anything really as it easy to forget it was happening at college except for the references of a dorm here and there. The characters felt very YA to me and I couldn't quite get a grasp on who they were though the author will tell the reader of their journey in the exposition. For the most part I liked Charlie and I understood how a toxic and an emotionally abusive relationship could have impacted her, but I didn't find her journey of self discovery satisfying enough. I kept waiting for her to come to the realization that she was in a similar situation with a toxic boss who exhibited similar behaviors of her ex-boyfriend.

I liked Reece as a love interest who is attentive, supportive, and it is clear that he deeply cares for Charlie, however; I still didn't really feel like I got to know him. Once again it is told of what he was like during college and how he supposedly changed post-college, but I would have liked to have seen it and not be told about it.

What i really liked about this book was the diverse representation of its LGBTQ+ cast of characters and their supportive network for each other. The book is highly readable with quip dialogue and just the right amount of pop culture references without feeling like it is overdoing it. I also appreciated the reality check that life post-college is hard and that people are still figuring out themselves even though they graduated.

I'm not sure if this will satisfy romance readers because the romance is a subplot. It might be better marketed as a coming of story.

Ella Dawson's debut novel follows Charlotte to her five-year college reunion, rife with exes, long-distance friends, and an abusive boss. The first half moved slowly, but I found myself rooting for Charlotte as she spent the reunion weekend figuring out how to grow beyond her post-college years by revisiting the places and relationships that made her the adult she now is.
Dawson's writing can be a bit overwrought, and the repetition of anxiety-calming mantas and the color wheel to describe emotions both feel a little overused. Charlotte is a main character whose side you want to be on, though, and that makes both the romance HEA plotline and her connections to her college friends feel like bright spots in her struggles with her awful boss and ex, and her own mental health.
Great read for fans of Ashley Herring Blake and Emily Henry! 3.5/5

oh my gosh, I loved this book so much!! It also reminded me that I've never had a unique experience in my life. Perfect read for for the bi babes this summer and for fans of Old Enough.

DNF @ 30%
Major disappointment!! The description had me so excited. I thought it would be just my type but I couldn’t get into it. The MC is milktoast and dialogue is v cringey

Thank you to Dutton and NetGalley for the ARC!

From one burned out bisexual to another, who has also worked for a really abusive and horrible boss....Charlotte is me and I am her. I felt so so seen for so much of this book, and my heart aches for what she went through. It felt like Ella Dawson took a peek into my life and pulled right out of it and put it to paper. I read this in like 3 sittings because I really couldn't put it down. The found family and community around her was really amazing and I loved seeing their personalities throughout the reunion weekend.

"But I love bring queer. It's one of my favorite parts about myself."

I was cheering for Charlotte to put herself first, and the ending of this book was so gratifying. Thank you to NetGalley & the publishers who sent me this ARC to read & review! <3

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc copy in exchange for an honest review.*

3.5 ⭐ rounded up.

Check the trigger warnings before reading.

I related so so much to the main character and I wanted to like this book so much more than I did, but it was boring at times. I was rooting for the main character and her happiness the entire time.

This book was definitely heavier than I had expected. It might only hit me as hard as it did because of how similar the main character and I are. There's mental abuse, homophobia, trash parents, PTSD, etc and I wasn't prepared for it.

It was still a good book and I am glad I read it because the story was important, but I think it could have been told differently to make it more effective.

✨ Millenialcore
✨ Bisexual main character
✨ Chosen family
✨ Second-chance romance
✨ Heavy topics

The author did a great job with the main character's thoughts and feelings. It's so hard to convey someone who is so closed-off, but yet wants someone to know and love every single part of her, but the author did it well.

I really liked the love interest in the book. He was almost too perfect and it made me skeptical about him almost the entire time, but that was just me overthinking it.

Overall, this was a good book with an important message.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Charlotte finds herself at a five year college reunion during a brutal speech. Her reaction propels her into a better future.

Wow. This book hit almost too close to home for me. I wish my 5year reunion brings with it some of the closure that Charlotte was able to find in this book. The descriptions of anxiety were so real and so familiar - it was terrible-but fantastic writing. I wish I didn't relate as much as I do to the characters - but that's my problem, not the books. This book is about finding your way home again and growing up, while also realizing it may take you away from the paths you think you are supposed to take. I wanted to cry but I was at work!

thanks to the author, publisher and netgalley for the ARC

This book is incredible. I don't know what Dawson put into the pages of this story, but its addicting and it truly feels like she was writing this story for me, for my 20-something self. The story of Charlotte is so relatable it hurts. Maybe not all of her story, but large swathes of it contain feelings and instances that I think many, if not most, young people have felt. The story of Charlotte is a perfect capture of what it feels like to have grown up in the early to late 2000s. While my own graduating class was, ahem, a bit earlier, than Charlotte's, reading this made me realize how much has really not changed.

Dawson's book is emotionally charged. She has this incredible way of weaving emotions and colors together, utilizing the color wheel/feelings chart (i can't remember the name) that therapists use. she wields this like a sword, cutting through the uncertainty of emotion with vivid color. I could feel and see the emotions that CHarlotte was dealing with, in large part becauase of how Dawson used color. It was visceral.

I was also impressed with how Dawson handled Charlotte's obvious emotional/mental issues. There was a huge chunk of this book that honestly felt like a panic attack waiting to happen, every line haunted by the idea that Charlotte's (we assume) abusive ex-boyfriend could show up at any time. And every time it built to this peak, nothing happened. It is such an interesting technique, that is supremely uncomfortable for those of us who deal with anxiety and panic attacks on any sort of basis. At first I was annoyed by the specter of this character, and then it dawned on me <i>I was supposed to feel this way because Charlotte did</i>. I hope this was Dawson's intention, and if not well, well done anyway!

This book, through Charlotte, also gives a voice to so many young people who simply feel like part of a rat race that we never wanted to be in in the first place. So many of us were fed the lie that we had to go into debt to earn a degree that would guarantee our future. A future that was destroyed by the generations that came before us. Charlotte lives a half life becauase she needs her job, her paycheck, to survive. Literally. She deals with a dead end job and a boss who is HORRIBLE because she needs to. to survive. SO many of us have dealt with this. So many of us never felt like we had a way out.

I wish I had had this book 10 or 15 years ago. I wish I had someone like Reece or Jackie would could tell me I just needed to ask for help. I know this is a work of fiction, but I hope other young people who read it take away this message. They're not alone. They have support. They will survive, even thrive. I have a feeling this story will stick with me for a long time to come.

Dawson’s debut novel follows Charlotte as she returns back to her Alma mater for her five year college reunion, where she will have to face the ghosts of boyfriends past. During the course of the weekend, Charlotte has to grapple with her unresolved trauma surrounding her time in college and how it continues to shape her adult life, while facing the prospect of rekindling a relationship with the one that got away. Surrounded by a eclectic group of friends (that she definitely hasn’t been avoiding), Charlotte comes to terms with her past and her future possibilities. Dawson wrote this in a way that cut straight to my soul. I saw so much of myself in Charlotte. The way that the queer identities of the characters were handled was not at all ham fisted or an after thought. Their queerness was simply a part of who they are, and the way they were written felt like I knew them. I can’t wait to read what Ella Dawson writes next.