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I really didn’t like the leading lady in this book, Cecily, and I completely blame the author. I know, duh, who else am I going to blame, right? Well, I’m calling out the author this way because she spends the first part of the book setting up Cecily as a bit of a doormat due to circumstances, which is then the reasons why Cecily agrees to take on this ridiculous podcast assignment which she knows is terrible but feels she must do it, because again, circumstances.

Then Holmes introduces the MMC, Will, through this wonderful meet cute that, if not entirely original, was cleverly written and sets up the reader to really want Cecily and Will to get together. But that’s not part of Cecily's stupid podcast assignment which she has beholden herself to.

Then you have the love coach side character, Eliza, who has all sorts of her own personal agendas and motivation, and you spend most of the book waiting for her duplicitous moment. And that sort of happens, but for the most part Holmes gets the reader behind Eliza and writes her not as the villain, but just singularly motivated by her own interests, which intersect with Cecily in a positive way, mostly. All that to say that by the end of the book I liked Eliza and I wasn’t expecting to.

Along the way, Cecily manages to torpedo her budding romance with Will due to her doormat-ness, but that’s turned around, not with a grand gesture, but by Cecily finally getting her head out of her ass. Which, great; HEA is gonna HEA, but Holmes’s execution was generally messy until the conclusion.