I wasn't sure going into this book what I was going to think. It's a romance (barely), it's very sex heavy which is not really my thing, but it's full of toxic unlikeable characters which is definitely my thing.

The love story between Teddy and Noa felt painfully realistic at times, and I really identified with Noas self destructive inclinations. Teddy is a controlling asshole pos but also a loving parent and extremely generous. Noa is pushing 40 but acts decades younger, has a ton of baggage but clearly just wants to be happy.

It was interesting to read a book like this where the toxicity is so apparent but you're still kinda rooting for everything to just work out for everyone. The characters felt very raw and real so it was easy to root for them.

This book had a lot of eroticism but for me was not 'hot', the sex scenes just made sense for the story. They are graphic and probably people who look for this kind of thing in a book will get something from them, but if you're like me and not really a fan of them, don't let them deter you from giving the book a try. I would also say you can skip/skim them if you want without losing much plot.

This book is translated from Hebrew as well, which comes across in the story, it's translated well but you can tell the dialogue wasn't originally English. I think it added to the book overall.

And advanced copy of this book was given to me by Simon & Schuster Canada.

unfortunately this one wasn't for me!

i usually love some complicated characters but our main character in this novel was frustrating. she seemed to act out of boredom half the time, nearly forty and cannot spend any time alone, just a bit of an annoying character overall.
the novel is full of explicit interactions between the main character and her boss, an uncomfortable dynamic that had no depth in my opinion. the novel itself got repetitive really quickly.

hard to get through personally.