There are days, and this is one of them, where I think this is the most romantic book I’ve read.
I’ve been trying to think of examples to disprove my hyperbole, and there are books I love that meet plenty other criteria, but in terms of pure romance, not to mention friendship and courtship, not to mention basic human goodness and the nontoxic ideal of how to treat other people, I’m going to call this my gold standard. The silent book lunches; the kids in the library; the unconventional families. Two adults with baggage and flaws where the biggest grand gesture is being there for each other.
So of course it’s a book that gets rejected by publishers for not being a romance.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(For the record, it’s also how to write a book that’s not white no matter what skin color your leads are.)
I was worried a re-read wouldn’t live up to the pedestal I’d put it on the first time, but I needn’t have. I love it double, this little weird book about two sweet, weird people, and summer rolls, and Beowulf.
For all the weird kids who sat alone at lunch, indeed.
- - -
Original review, June 2019:
This is like fanfic of a remake of Three Days of the Condor in an alternate universe, and if you think I’m not 1000% into that, you don’t know me at all. WHAT IS THIS BOOK? I LOVE IT.
Plus! Plus an honest-to-God love story, plus the best aspects of every workplace/spy/dysfunctional family comedy, plus real stakes and real depth, plus a bevy of characters that all need books of their own, plus reading Beowulf to kids? Merlin and Arthur? COME ON.
It would be five stars for Arthur’s family alone, which is what made me go, now this book is just messing with me, it’s too good to be true, it can’t really exist, but IT IS AND IT DOES.
I’m not sure you could mix any more of my favorite tropes across multiple genres in a more unique and surprising and lovely way, and I’m talking unironic, straightforward, this-book-is-damn-great kind of love, so I’m gonna stop before I break my caps lock.
Just. YAY.