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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
relaxing
Thanks to Netgalley and Grand Central Publishing for the ARC of this in exchange for my honest review.
I greatly enjoyed this own-voices, sapphic romance. I’m maybe a little in love with Cade myself now. The plot was trope-filled in all the best ways, from the couple to be inheriting a adult toy store that they need to save, to some light fake-dating, and I enjoyed all of it. The chemistry was fantastic, and I love that there was buildup to the steamy scenes and that it felt special.
I greatly enjoyed this own-voices, sapphic romance. I’m maybe a little in love with Cade myself now. The plot was trope-filled in all the best ways, from the couple to be inheriting a adult toy store that they need to save, to some light fake-dating, and I enjoyed all of it. The chemistry was fantastic, and I love that there was buildup to the steamy scenes and that it felt special.
I received an ARC from NetGalley and I am happy to give my honest opinion.
This is my first book by this author and I really liked it. I had a hard time getting into it at first with the over the top side characters and connecting with Cade who seemed, at first, very one-dimensional. I'm glad I came back to it because it was so lovely.
Cade is the daughter of famous artists and runs their art gallery. Her whole family is loose, open to the spirits of the world, and too distracted to pay the business any mind. They call Cade their accountant daughter and a changeling. Honestly, this kind of hurt my heart. She was different than the rest of her family and got crap from them for being different, even if it was joking or gentle teasing. Her aunt dies and at the funeral she meets Selena who was a close friend of her aunt and helped run her sex toy business. Her aunt leaves the business jointly to Cade and Selena, leaving them in $100k in debt to solve in one month.
Selena is a talented artist who dropped out of art school after an affair with a professor (trigger warning: this professor was not a nice person and this relationship would definitely be categorized as abusive). She takes a vow of celibacy until she gets herself straightened out but really enjoys being a sex educator at their shop. She hates all the stuff Cade wants to change to get the business running again because it feels like she's losing a piece of her friend who died. I totally get this.
Cade comes out of her shell and she was my favorite part of this book. I wanted to gather her up in a big hug and soothe her worries away. Selena settles down a bit and tries to help Cade in the ways most tangible: entering paperwork into QuickBooks, creating a PowerPoint presentation, and feeding Cade. I loved this use of "love languages" to show the other person they cared.
In the end, this book was super sweet and really a great read. I was a little overwhelmed by the side characters and outrageousness that is Portland but that's coming from someone raised in Midwest. I wanted better for Cade and how her parents treated her and would really like to know if Cade and Selena will last given how different they are.
This is my first book by this author and I really liked it. I had a hard time getting into it at first with the over the top side characters and connecting with Cade who seemed, at first, very one-dimensional. I'm glad I came back to it because it was so lovely.
Cade is the daughter of famous artists and runs their art gallery. Her whole family is loose, open to the spirits of the world, and too distracted to pay the business any mind. They call Cade their accountant daughter and a changeling. Honestly, this kind of hurt my heart. She was different than the rest of her family and got crap from them for being different, even if it was joking or gentle teasing. Her aunt dies and at the funeral she meets Selena who was a close friend of her aunt and helped run her sex toy business. Her aunt leaves the business jointly to Cade and Selena, leaving them in $100k in debt to solve in one month.
Selena is a talented artist who dropped out of art school after an affair with a professor (trigger warning: this professor was not a nice person and this relationship would definitely be categorized as abusive). She takes a vow of celibacy until she gets herself straightened out but really enjoys being a sex educator at their shop. She hates all the stuff Cade wants to change to get the business running again because it feels like she's losing a piece of her friend who died. I totally get this.
Cade comes out of her shell and she was my favorite part of this book. I wanted to gather her up in a big hug and soothe her worries away. Selena settles down a bit and tries to help Cade in the ways most tangible: entering paperwork into QuickBooks, creating a PowerPoint presentation, and feeding Cade. I loved this use of "love languages" to show the other person they cared.
In the end, this book was super sweet and really a great read. I was a little overwhelmed by the side characters and outrageousness that is Portland but that's coming from someone raised in Midwest. I wanted better for Cade and how her parents treated her and would really like to know if Cade and Selena will last given how different they are.
I don’t even know where to start. I come into f/f romances* with a lot of baggage as a reader, because I’ve been betrayed by the genre so many times before. There is such a wild disparity between how we write men being intimate vs. how we write women, a whole lot of internalized misogyny that both authors and publishers have historically not bothered to examine before publishing watered down crap novels and marketing them as lesbian romances.
Karelia Stetz-Waters knows how women, especially queer women, have been harmed in romance books and how to rectify it. Stetz-Waters loves women and it shows. It shows in how the word “clitoris” was used by page 10 of the novel, and many times after. It shows in how she wrote Cade’s journey and Selena’s compassion and the rich, loving descriptions of breasts and vulvae and labium (English plurals are weird). It shows in how her book has the same misunderstandings and mini angst fests that I love in m/f and m/m romances but am so often cheated out of when the two leads are both women. It shows, it shows, it shows.
This book is a light, summery romcom, but it means so much more to me as a reader with lots of sapphic-baggage: A good lesbian romance is never just a good book to me—it’s healing and hopeful and magnificent, and Satisfaction Guaranteed is all of those things. It is also genuinely funny. I rarely laugh out loud while reading, but this book made me laugh multiple times. (It made me tear up, too.) I loved the supporting cast so much, and its themes of grief and healing, which were written about honestly without ever feeling heavy. It made me want to pack a suitcase, move to Portland, find a wife, and run a sex toy shop (or maybe a bookstore, let's be honest).
I just love it lots. Highly recommended. <3
*It is totally possible the terms f/f, m/m, and m/f are wildly outdated, but I don’t know other terms that can be used succinctly.
Karelia Stetz-Waters knows how women, especially queer women, have been harmed in romance books and how to rectify it. Stetz-Waters loves women and it shows. It shows in how the word “clitoris” was used by page 10 of the novel, and many times after. It shows in how she wrote Cade’s journey and Selena’s compassion and the rich, loving descriptions of breasts and vulvae and labium (English plurals are weird). It shows in how her book has the same misunderstandings and mini angst fests that I love in m/f and m/m romances but am so often cheated out of when the two leads are both women. It shows, it shows, it shows.
This book is a light, summery romcom, but it means so much more to me as a reader with lots of sapphic-baggage: A good lesbian romance is never just a good book to me—it’s healing and hopeful and magnificent, and Satisfaction Guaranteed is all of those things. It is also genuinely funny. I rarely laugh out loud while reading, but this book made me laugh multiple times. (It made me tear up, too.) I loved the supporting cast so much, and its themes of grief and healing, which were written about honestly without ever feeling heavy. It made me want to pack a suitcase, move to Portland, find a wife, and run a sex toy shop (or maybe a bookstore, let's be honest).
I just love it lots. Highly recommended. <3
*It is totally possible the terms f/f, m/m, and m/f are wildly outdated, but I don’t know other terms that can be used succinctly.
i really liked it! kind of awkward to read in public, but i did it anyway bc i was really enjoying myself! the romance was really sweet and i really fell in love with the characters and the message about grief was really nice as well. i would definitely recommend this to a friend! not the best book i've ever read, but i really enjoyed my time with this book and these characters. honestly lovely!
3.5 stars so I’m rounding up. It’s a fun smutty romance, I think it could have had more romance and character development but I appreciate an opposites attract story
. It being set in Portland felt authentic and even though one of the main characters annoyed me she felt like someone I’d meet here so I’m not mad about it.
. It being set in Portland felt authentic and even though one of the main characters annoyed me she felt like someone I’d meet here so I’m not mad about it.
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Great but miscommunication trope that isn’t resolved until the last 10 minutes and it is painful
A fun and quirky premise executed about as you would expect it to be. Fun in the sense that this is a story about two people forced together by a deceased hippie in Portland, Oregon to own and operate a failing adult toy store. Quirky in the sense that the word “bae” was used during a sex scene. Points lost on that alone, in addition to everything outside of the main relationship not being fully developed enough for me. You can’t have a cast of beautifully eccentric side characters and only incorporate them a small handful of times. 3/5.