Love & Other Disasters

I'm pretty sure this is my first reading experience that features a nonbinary character; it admittedly took me a bit to get the hang of the singular they pronoun. This also might have been the first romance I've read where one of the MCs is divorced.

I used to watch Top Chef and Master Chef and I still watch the Great British Baking Show, so I loved the behind-the-scenes details of a fictitious reality cooking show, but I wish there had been a little more about the foooooood. I like foooood. I like hearing about foood! I like romance too (and btw the foodie sex was awesomely written), but a lot of the actual reality show parts seemed very much to be secondary to the friends-to-lovers getting to know each other and mostly eschewing the other contestants on the show.

Mostly this worked well and didn't annoy me because Dahlia and London treated each other like grownups who could handle the truth even when things were rough, even though of course there's tension when (not a spoiler, true of every reality show) There Can Only Be One Winner.

I appreciated their familial relationships as well, for both characters. Several good (to my mind) representations of trans/queer folks, and the people who love them. (Folx? I keep seeing it spelled with an X, but I'm not sure why, since the regular spelling isn't binary.) Yes, there is some transphobia, but it is hinted at while still maintaining the characters' chosen pronouns, and that was a thoughtful touch.

I tore through this in two days, which might be the fastest I've read anything in months, so there's that.