Eduardo Santiago
Sweet... cozy... sometimes to the point of cloying. Preachy... but entirely about values aligned with mine (kindness, community, chosen family, antiracism, resistance to bullying) so that gets a pass. Cringey levels of privilege: the love interests are all physically attractive (and we're constantly reminded of it), the main action takes place in a beautiful seaside estate without concern for anything so pedestrian as money, and all crises -- tense as they are -- get resolved rather more conveniently than is customary in (at least <i>my</i>) real life.
Still.
I liked it. Really liked it. Unashamedly. Not in a guilty-pleasure or bubblegum sort of way, either: it had depth and warmth and tension and a lot of heart.
Sweet... cozy... sometimes to the point of cloying. Preachy... but entirely about values aligned with mine (kindness, community, chosen family, antiracism, resistance to bullying) so that gets a pass. Cringey levels of privilege: the love interests are all physically attractive (and we're constantly reminded of it), the main action takes place in a beautiful seaside estate without concern for anything so pedestrian as money, and all crises -- tense as they are -- get resolved rather more conveniently than is customary in (at least <i>my</i>) real life.
Still.
I liked it. Really liked it. Unashamedly. Not in a guilty-pleasure or bubblegum sort of way, either: it had depth and warmth and tension and a lot of heart.