Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

Iris Kelly Doesn't Date by Ashley Herring Blake

26 reviews

cwbillings's review

adventurous funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

“Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date” just warmed me up to romance novels FAST. I’ve never been a huge fan of romance as a genre but man is this book in particular changing my mind! This is well written, the characters believable and genuine, and so gosh darn sweet. I really love this one and found myself relating to the main characters, which I should’ve seen coming as a bisexual writer with a decade of theatre experience myself lol Ugh, what can I say?? Now I’m a Stevie + Iris shipper for life!

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aseel_reads's review

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funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

While I appreciated the struggles the main characters went through and parts were funny, I wasn't as invested in this one, compared to the first two

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e_riahh's review

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challenging emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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wisewayfarer's review

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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lunep's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a great book...up until the third act conflict. I was so excited because I was loving it and rooting for Stevie and Iris, they were so cute, so fun, the sex scenes were great, there was angts, but then in the third act conflict Iris lost me. And I feel so mad at myself!! Bc I can think about why she acted the way she acted in a logical way, I understand why she did what she did, but I still think she was unfair to Stevie, and her attitude made me not feel excited at the end 😭😭😭

Like, I even got excited for Stevie when Olivia asked her out!!

, I even tried to think "if Iris was a man and this was a hetero romance, would you feel the same way?" trying to rule out internalized misogyny and tbf...I'm not sure 😩 so that's why I'm still giving it 4 stars, I can't completely rule out internalized misogyny from my feelings and I don't wanna hurt a book that I was genuinely loving up until the 86% mark

There were another couple things I didn't love, but I didn't mind that much:

The way Adri didn't get any accountability ever. I'm sorry but she was a shitty friend/ex, and I know ending long friendship like theirs is hard, but she never even apologized, and Stevie just accepts it because "she knew everything she needed from Adri she'd already given to herself"
after telling each other "I love you platonically", and after the fact that the last conversation the two had on the page ammounted to Adri telling Stevie that she wanted her back but she didn't want to break up with Vanessa???
, nuh uh, sorry
Iris's family. Also never apologized to her for being so shitty and never understanding her, and her brother seemed so misogynystic?? Making "jokes" about how a Happily Ever After is really a "Shittily Ever After" and other kind of "jokes" like that with his BIL, like, just say you hate your wife and go
And, the one I ignored the most bc ofc, this is a romance book, and I was actually rooting for them: that I don't love when a MC is constantly telling their family "I don't want to date, I'm happy by myself, I do not need you to set me up on dates, I actually hate it" and their pushy family doesn't accept it only for the MC to, in fact, fall in love/realize that they weren't happy by themself. The petty side in me doesn't like giving the pushy families the satisfaction lmao

But one thing I ADORED were Iris's friends! At first I was a little lost ngl, when they're first introduced via group chat, because I couldn't keep up with who was who and who was with who, but I know that's on me for starting on the last book of the trilogy lmao, and once I was able to keep them straight, they're just the most supportive, lovely group of friends <3 (specially compared to Stevie's 😒 cuz I don't let Vanessa off the hook either, even tho I didn't talk about her when talking about Adri

,but dating your supposed best friend's ex two months after they broke up?? Hell no, not even the "queer spaces are tight knit" excuse can save that for me

. And now that I think about it, Ren felt way more like Stevie's best friend that Vanessa did)

I also LOOOVED Stevie's character growth, at the end, I felt she was the MC more than Iris (tho, since it was dual POV I'm pretty sure they're both of them are MCs, and neither is just "the love interest") because through most of the book I didn't feel like Iris got much development

besides her getting out of her writing slump and becoming more of a romantic

, Stevie FLOURISHED. I might be a little biased tbf, bc I saw myself on Stevie a lot (I don't have an anxiety diagnosis and I don't think I've ever had a panic attack, but a lot of Stevie's problems with one night stands, romance, and confidence I felt applied to me too), but I just think she grew a lot and I loved seeing her stand up for herself

and then moving to NY and, even tho she got anxious sometimes, pushing through it knowing she can do whatever she put her mind to

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apoppyinthewind's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I did enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed Delilah Green Doesn't Care and Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail so if you read & enjoyed the other Bright Falls books, I'd recommend checking this one out. The main reason it didn't get the 5 stars the other books got is that I felt the family elements Iris dealt with were not addressed in the end and as a reader, I was a little disappointed by that. Otherwise, I enjoyed reading about Iris & Stevie's relationship and I'm glad Stevie at least got a scene dealing with her friend's behaviour in the end. Just would have liked that for Iris and her family as well.

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mangofraiche's review

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emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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finnickdeservedbetter's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Tropes & Themes:

- f/f pairing (lesbian x bi)
- romance author x theatre actor
- fake dating
- spicy lessons
- dating lessons
- failed one night stand
- small town
- mid-sized FMC
- anxiety rep

Spice level: low-medium
3 explicit sex scenes

Representation
- Bi MC & multiple secondary characters
- Lesbian MC & multiple secondary characters
- 2 non-binary side characters
- Several POC side characters
- MC with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

My thoughts:

I loved it. It took me a second to warm up to Iris in Delilah Green Doesn't Care but once I did, I love her and I knew her book would be my favourite. Surprise, surprise, I was right.

I loved seeing GAD rep. Anxiety as a whole isn't discussed a lot in fiction, especially in contemporary romance. I also liked the emphasis on it being part of Stevie, but not defining her. It's not a personal fault. It just is what it is.

Another thing I loved was the child-free by choice rep. So often (as in 9.9/10 times) a women's HEA in romance books is being married, having 2.4 kids, and living in the suburbs in a house with a white picket fence. That's fine and dandy...if that's what you want. That's not the case for so many women but those women are so rarely represented.

Anyways, I'm stop yapping, otherwise we'll get into spoiler territory.

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zaesbookshelf's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This book had me HOOKED.

I love a fake dating trope. When you add in how absolutely queer-centric the story is, it’s so much better. While this is technically the third book of this series, it is the first one I read and had no problem following the story — so yay for series that can read as stand-alones!

It was also really refreshing reading a book with a MC who had an anxiety disorder that didn’t magically go away throughout the story.

Only downside: I felt like the end was slightly rushed. But, I might have enjoyed it a bit more if I had read the other two books first as it does feel like a wrap-up for the series.

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prettynerdy3's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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