This was better than I thought it would be, although still definitely a book where the author's origins shine through. Personal pet peeves in this being: interactions that vastly overstay their welcome and include weird details in an attempt to show you how cool a character is (basically all of chapter 4), "Somehow I Just Accomplished This Impossible Thing" (beating the guy emphasized as The Best Chess Boy Ever without trying, without trying, and without him messing up), the just straight up hiding the backstory about the dad rather than even providing good hints for people to follow (especially irritating to me as a long-time member of the Dead Parent Club who has never once met someone who was secretive about it in real life and therefore hates that trope in fiction). I'd give some compliments to follow up the criticisms but this is so far out of my taste range and so far into the "I'm only reading this to be a good teen librarian" range that the best I have is an appreciation for the Dragon Age name drop...although I'd assume the author is probably a Cullen stan, given what I know of her taste. Bleh.
Overall...it sure is a book by a Reylo author. It isn't for me, but I do feel the need to properly vet any sort of enemies-to-lovers story before recommending it to the teens at work--because that genre is absolutely riddled with stories normalizing super toxic relationships--so I'd like to power through and try to finish it because it seems like it's on the healthier end of that genre.
Overall...it sure is a book by a Reylo author. It isn't for me, but I do feel the need to properly vet any sort of enemies-to-lovers story before recommending it to the teens at work--because that genre is absolutely riddled with stories normalizing super toxic relationships--so I'd like to power through and try to finish it because it seems like it's on the healthier end of that genre.