not "too soon" for pandemic settings

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This was pretty cute. An apartment building gets locked down due to Covid, and we get daily updates from several different apartments-- people who are trapped together, or who are trapped apart.

The "what if your building manager locks us in" is a bit of a hurdle-- as much as we probably should have strictly quarantined at the very beginning, as is portrayed here, it didn't happen, nor does it seem likely or legal. If you can get over this imagination jump, the rest is pretty good.

The cast is a little large; I always struggle when there are lots of characters, and this array of young white 20-something women was harder for me to track. I spent the first page of every chapter trying to remember which was which. A cast with more diversity would have helped, or making the book a little longer so each character had more space to shine as unique. (Or even cutting one or two of the apartments, honestly. How many 20-somethings do we need?) There was one boyfriend that was giving me narcissist/controller vibes, but this faded: seems like his character just came on a little strong.

So much has already changed since March 2020 that this does a nice job of capturing the moment. Usually a lot of pop culture references would make a book feel dated faster, but this story's drop-in comments about Tiger King, baking shows, food delivery, TikTok, and other flash-in-the-pans of the early pandemic gave a nice authenticity.

The focus is on the relationships in the apartments: a one-night stand and a couple spending their first weekend together both stuck together all week, a group of 4 friends sharing a one-bedroom a lot longer than planned, a longer-term couple trapped apart, and another long-term couple who probably need to separate but can't. A few of the characters share a little anxiety about the pandemic, but it's general and definitely not the focus. Even coming off my first confirmed in-person exposure (I've been so careful!), it wasn't "too soon" for me.