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What to say? I want to recommend Katherine Center to you, but any other title than this. (I really, really liked “Things you Save in a Fire”–start there.) I guess my childhood sense of being overwhelmed by embarrassment when I or others mess up in social situations and get people's names and identities wrong is still part of my psyche. This well of shame meant I couldn't relax into this as a cute romance with a fascinating neurological condition but rather kept tensing for the inevitable errors that face blindness creates. I do appreciate the research Center puts into finding unusual, believable human circumstances that provide welcome twists on familiar tropes in romance and women's fiction. But–I could not finish. I feel too much the second-hand embarrassment! Not something authors think to issue content warnings about, right?!
Eh...don't bother with this one. But--DO READ other Camilla Evergreen books! The main characters here seemed flat and unrealistic, with problems that I wasn't feeling and solutions that didn't quite get there. HOWEVER, I have found others of her books to be UTTERLY delightful, especially How to Find Love if you are Weird.
Sweet and clever gender inversions in a dozen ways that mostly didn't feel modern or contrived but smart, interesting, contributing to character conflict and growth.
I shall track down more in this series.
I thought it was the first by this author I've read, then I dug deeper and found a DNF in another series which I quit because of flat characters and the utter unrealism of a modern author writing about subsistence skills like hauling water, lighting oil lamps, cooking on wood... Apparently none of that unpalatable-to-me vibe was present in Snapdragons to make me twitch, so--different domain? More author skills since Ashes on the Moor? Either way, I'll read more in this series and see what this author can do.
I like this author! The second by her I've read.
Complex and interesting, and there was actually a moment where I didn't know which trope was going to be engaged and who the romantic lead would actually be--because Evergreen is witty and skillful at acknowledging ALL the tropes in the genre and playing fast and loose with them in the most engaging ways.