Reviews - Outdrawn | The StoryGraph

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This was fun! Sage and Noah are both interesting characters with great chemistry and bring out the best in each other. It is a bit odd that this book is so heavily marketed as rivals-to-lovers when they get over their rivalry pretty fast; most of the novel is taken up by improving their communication and dealing with their family issues. This means that the romance itself is pretty simplistic, but I had fun with it nonetheless.

The personal issues the girls are going through make up for what isn't spent on the romance. Sage's family constantly takes her money, assuming that her successful career makes it fine, but leaving her feeling like she has to wear herself down to the bone making sure they have enough despite their not saving and letting their mom take care of them. Meanwhile, Noah's family continually devalues her work and the effort she puts into it, acting like it's a hobby she'll quit and get a real job. Both of them, as seen by their efforts writing their superhero, know how harmful it is to expect black women to be strong enough to handle everything, but have difficulty setting boundaries to avoid it in their lives. The two of them valuing each other urge the other to set those boundaries and, more importantly, provide the additional support they need to not have to give everything.

I also love that Noah has an arc centered on learning not to push herself physically either. She has carpal tunnel, but ignores it because she thinks she has to in order to succeed and that she can just push past it and that will make her hand stronger. This of course goes poorly and she learns that she has to provide herself the breaks she needs. I love an arc about unlearning internalized ableism and to value yourself by more than your productive output. However, since this arc takes most of the novel to complete, the book does include quite a bit of that internalized ableism, so be wary of that going in.

I do have to say I don't recommend the audiobook. Noah's narrator's pacing is a bit off and Sage's cadence sounds like the tiktok robot lady. They also don't have similar voices for each other so both characters sound completely different in their own POV chapters vs the other's chapters. I can't blame the author for the audiobook's flaws though, and any other complaints I have are pretty minor. This was a cute, lovely little romance that I had a lot of fun with. 4⭐️