I was definitely not the demographic for this book. But also, I had imagined this to be a cute boy meets girl, and girl falls for boy situationship, and together they save a bookshop. Instead, it became a love triangle and gave me the ick when it came to the main male character being at emotional odds with his feelings toward his girlfriend and the girl he ends up falling for. I already don't like love triangles to begin with, so this on top of emotional infidelity just turned me off even more.

If this was the only thing that bothered me, I would have been willing to cut this book some slack. Unfortunately, the writing was mostly mid, and as I said, not entirely for me. I could only tolerate the high school drama for so long, and this one didn't even have the decency for it to be a fantasy with magic and dragons. At least in a fantasy, there are higher Stakes to worry about that I can overlook the romance.

I did like when the characters talked about books, and I did like the overall "small town family bookshop goes head to head with multicorporation giant" story, especially because this was black-centric. And I was kind of glad that at least this ended up in a wholesome way.

All the same, I think Trey is a tool, and he and Blair deserve each other. Ariel can do much better. Like Darren Acre. #ISaidWhatISaid