oitb > Recent Status Updates

Normally, I wouldn’t touch childhood friends to lovers and second chance romances with a ten-foot pole, but this book is sooooo doing it for me so far.

They wrote sci-fi fanfic together as teens 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

This book is great.

Honestly, I’m reading this mostly for the cover. Best cover. I don’t expect to like this but I also feel like I gotta try for the sake of the cover. Have I said I like this cover?

Ooooo I just learned this author was (is?) a priest herself! This just makes me appreciate the book even more.

I really like the setup of this book. I don’t do second chance romances but this setup got me good.

There is sooooo much gender essentialist language in this series. A lot of “men are like this” and “women are like that” stuff 🤨🤨🤨🤨 I don’t know if it’s because this is how Lisa Kleypas thinks of the world or how she thinks people in Texas think of the world or both…?!

Ugh, really hate the conflict here. A fumble from the author in an otherwise fresh book.

Down with capitalism 🥲

This book is already sooooooooooooo cute.

Hardy 🥵

This part of the book is really hard to get through. I knew the CWs going in, but it doesn’t make it any easier 😭

This new-to-me audiobook narrator’s voice is sooooo smooth and melodic.

What an incredibly unique reading experience — the bits that are good are SO GOOD AND GREAT, and the all the bits around it are SO BORING and hard to keep up with. Lol.

It’s taking forever for me to read this book. There is like, TOO much plot??? The baking show, the royal wedding, the running of their respective bakeries …. I just want the characters to be internal monologuing about their secret fears and ambitions and being sarcastic with each other 😩

If it weren’t MJW, I would’ve dnf’ed this. I’m sticking this out like one sticks out a Marvel movie — lots of people insist it’s good and there ARE some entertaining bits, but overall not a lot of depth and just a lot of heavy handed storytelling.

If it weren’t MJW, I would’ve dnf’ed this. I’m sticking this out like one sticks out a Marvel movie — lots of people insist it’s good and there ARE some entertaining bits, but overall not a lot of depth and just a lot of heavy handed storytelling.

“That smile still played about her mouth, and he wanted to reach across the table and touch it with his thumb. To physically feel her amusement.”

What an interesting book. I never quite got into the Maiden Lane series as much as other readers have and have kinda mostly written Elizabeth Hoyt not for me, but I might change my mind with this one!

Caleb is so annoying. My least favorite kind of hero — constantly trying to show he knows better than the heroine, constantly inserting himself where he’s not needed over a misplaced sense of machismo!!

Love love love and older heroine with a younger hero.

This book is soooooo good about consent.

Gabe 🥵

Never in my life have I wanted so badly for two fictional characters to boink.

This sexual tension is killing me. I am SQUIRMING.

There is always such a delicious giddy feeling between JAL’s characters. JAL’s skill is fucking unmatched when it comes to playful banter, INCREDIBLY soft longing, and god, it’s all so romantic.