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Please keep in mind that at least one of these stars is because of how this book hit my own personal preference.

Someone at my book club a few months ago said that in modern romance novels, you can open them to halfway and open them to 90% and instantly find the two sex scenes. I'm pleased to report that this book was actually just all pining for pretty much the whole time, even if it was a little hard to believe by the end.

The plot was engaging and charming and I'm excited to read the rest - what's the deal with smooth men!!!! And I loved the supporting cast.

Only bad part is that I listened to the audiobook narrated by Joel Richards...who read usually with the speed and enthusiasm you'd use reading a menu from the passenger seat to someone who's watching the road while they drive. I bumped it up to 1.3x and it was fine, though.

EDIT: I completely forgot to say that the personal preference part was that I think, as a survivor of abuse myself, I have a bit of a fondness for reading stories about survivors of abuse coming to terms with it (especially when the abuser gets their comeuppance). The female lead is unfucking her head as a result of an emotionally abusive and gaslighting marriage that felt similar to my own prior abusive relationship. So I was cheering for her as she unlearned the things her abuser had convinced her of, and got rid of him for good.

I didn't like this book. Sorry.

I should have known better, it's not my first Casey McQuiston. As with One Last Stop, this was less of a romance novel and more of a greatest hits of queer history factoids with a romance plot kind of tucked in around the edges. It's got a lot of queer trauma in present day, which I find difficult to read - I read romance for escapism and relaxation, not depressing realism. Romance is junk food, a little potato chip you can finish in one sitting - this book was a crudite board ;)

The last half of the book slows down way more than I'd like, and instead of getting on with the plot, we slog through a ton of flowery, increasingly ill-advised emails that have me cringing just knowing the leak plot twist is going to come. And it does! But then it's like, good somehow, because queer people take to the streets to support the spoiled rich political offspring who jetsets around in a relationship with a prince?

Idk. I'm ranting. I didn't like it, it didn't even have good spicy scenes (McQuiston doesn't write explicit sex with nouns, just heavily implied sex full of prepositions), and the ending came together way too neat and tidy. Not for me.