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komiification's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, and Grief
Moderate: Alcohol, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Blood, Pregnancy, and Infidelity
Minor: Incest
takarakei's review
lighthearted
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
3.0
- everyone is bi
- sapphic
- childhood hometown, small town romance
- group of girl friends
I expected more connection to the characters, but kinda couldn't keep some of the friends straight. The whole plotline of breaking up their friend's wedding was like... "yall really let her get all the way this far before stepping in? are y'all actually friends?" The relationship between Delilah and Claire didn't really hit either, it felt very like insta-lovey. I think there was actually just not enough focus on their relationship to make it seem more believable.
3.5/5🌶️
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Alcohol, Death of parent, and Grief
Moderate: Toxic relationship and Abandonment
Minor: Infidelity
these bitches drink a SHIT TONlexnicole's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Death of parent, and Sexual content
scarroll178's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I thought the concept of the book was really interesting, but I didn’t always love the execution. The sex scenes were enjoyable enough at first, but I think the author added one too many or just didn’t know how to keep them interesting because by the end I was BORED of reading it. One character felt pretty cartoonish and one-sided, which was disappointing because I expected this particular character to be more complex. Not enough happened either, like most of the plans that the main characters had didn’t even come to fruition, or they just did really small things that were supposed to be funny but weren’t tbh and didn’t add anything to the story. And I wish the love interest had more personality aside from just being “sweet.”
But I did really love Delilah’s character. I ended up really appreciating her relationship with Astrid and how it was handled, though I think the two of them should’ve had more pages together. I like how all of Delilah’s, Astrid’s, and Claire’s insecurities came together and played off of each other to add more conflict to the story. And I liked Iris’s boyfriend lol, he was funny
But I did really love Delilah’s character. I ended up really appreciating her relationship with Astrid and how it was handled, though I think the two of them should’ve had more pages together. I like how all of Delilah’s, Astrid’s, and Claire’s insecurities came together and played off of each other to add more conflict to the story. And I liked Iris’s boyfriend lol, he was funny
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment
Moderate: Violence
hello_lovely13's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, and Sexual content
Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Infidelity
bzliz's review against another edition
funny
medium-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
Edit: I came back to bump this rating a smidge higher after doing so for Astrid’s book also. I was too harsh the first time around and this deserves 4 stars because I did really like it.
Original review:
Delilah and Claire are at opposite ends of their lives- Delilah is a photographer trying to find success in New York after a pretty lonely, loveless childhood following her father’s death. Claire had a child young and she never got to experience her wild 20s, which is part of why she finds the courage to go hit on Delilah in the bar, completely unaware that the subject of her flirtation is her best friend’s sister.
This book has a bunch of great romance tropes, like the classic only one bed and the characters seem plucked right out of a TV movie script. The villains are very villainy and nobody seems inclined to stop their bad behavior. Isabel is super controlling of Astrid and downright neglectful of Delilah and Spencer spends every scene he’s in ordering Astrid around like she’s his servant. It’s pretty Cinderella-y, but if the two sisters were both Cinderella at the same time.
Now for the negative: The characters in this spend a LOT of time drinking, it’s practically a personality trait. It feels like an excuse to have Claire and Delilah act on their attraction to each other when they’re both too afraid of getting too attached otherwise. And the villains are- as I mentioned- very villainy. Isabel I can maybe squint at and understand her motivations but I can’t figure out why Spencer acts the way he does. He’s just there to be generally terrible and to give Delilah a reason to feel bad for Astrid.
My favorite character development came near the end asAstrid and Delilah realize they’ve both hurt each other while blaming the other the whole time. I loved seeing their baby steps to fixing their shattered relationship. I would love to see a book more about repairing that relationship.
Original review:
Delilah and Claire are at opposite ends of their lives- Delilah is a photographer trying to find success in New York after a pretty lonely, loveless childhood following her father’s death. Claire had a child young and she never got to experience her wild 20s, which is part of why she finds the courage to go hit on Delilah in the bar, completely unaware that the subject of her flirtation is her best friend’s sister.
This book has a bunch of great romance tropes, like the classic only one bed and the characters seem plucked right out of a TV movie script. The villains are very villainy and nobody seems inclined to stop their bad behavior. Isabel is super controlling of Astrid and downright neglectful of Delilah and Spencer spends every scene he’s in ordering Astrid around like she’s his servant. It’s pretty Cinderella-y, but if the two sisters were both Cinderella at the same time.
Now for the negative: The characters in this spend a LOT of time drinking, it’s practically a personality trait. It feels like an excuse to have Claire and Delilah act on their attraction to each other when they’re both too afraid of getting too attached otherwise. And the villains are- as I mentioned- very villainy. Isabel I can maybe squint at and understand her motivations but I can’t figure out why Spencer acts the way he does. He’s just there to be generally terrible and to give Delilah a reason to feel bad for Astrid.
My favorite character development came near the end as
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol and Sexual content
Moderate: Abandonment, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, and Grief
infjkiki's review against another edition
emotional
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
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Death of parent, Grief, and Sexual content
Moderate: Toxic relationship
Minor: Infidelity
hrtlss_grl's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
OK. So I liked this one more than I thought I would for about the first 40% of the book. At one point I almost DNF'd it, but kept going because it was so well written. For most of the book Astrid comes off as this mean girl, and her friends her little clique. Which makes sense, but it just made me want to pull my hair out because I can't stand books where it is a bully-romance. But eventually it gets better, fleshes out the characters more and actually makes it feel like it works. Next one is a sort of Taming of the Shrew sort of thing, so hopefully it can redeem Astrid for me!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment and Sexual content
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Alcohol, Infidelity, Misogyny, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Injury/Injury detail
jkneebone's review against another edition
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
In Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, the titular Delilah returns home to small-town Oregon to photograph her semi-estranged stepsister’s wedding and finds herself falling for one of the maids of honor, Claire. Delilah has aspirations of greatness in the NYC art world and a whole load of baggage with her stepmom Isabel and stepsister Astrid, and is only photographing Astrid’s wedding because she really needs the money. Claire is a single mom to ten year old Ruby, trying to navigate Ruby’s father’s recent reappearance in their lives. Along the way, Delilah agrees to team up with Claire and the other MOH Iris to break up the wedding, because Astrid’s fiancé is a grade-A asshole.
I was excited going into this because of how many people I saw enjoying it but I have to say…I was not impressed. In my opinion, it was not very well written - a lot of the language felt very rote and overused, and none of the descriptions of the romance felt specific or unique. Obviously in romance novels there are certain emotional beats the readers expect you to hit, but I also expect a bit of creativity in the wording if possible, and this book really missed the mark.
I also found myself getting annoyed with a lot of the characters. Delilah still has a major chip on her shoulder about being excluded by Astrid & co when they were teenagers, to the point where it seems to be the basis for most of her personality and decisions. I get that she had a shitty childhood and that as a kid she couldn’t see the nuance of the situation, but to be thirty and still not able to look beyond your own experiences to realize that the other people involved were also children at the time?Yes, we finally got that at the end when Delilah read Astrid’s diary, but that didn’t make up for Delilah’s willful ignorance for the first three-quarters of the story.
As for Claire - I wish that the book had focused more on her fear that Josh would leave her & Ruby again, rather than her worries about Ruby’s safety when with him, because it felt like mixed messaging and sometimes I found myself getting annoyed on his behalf! (Not something I want to be feeling about the MC’s ex in a romance novel!) I felt like we were *told* that Claire was worried about him leaving and upsetting Ruby, but what we *saw* was that she thought her daughter was literally unsafe with him, which left me wondering why the fuck she would let Ruby even visit him? In the first few chapters, she shows up unannounced at his apartment on a night when Ruby is staying with him and freaks out because he forgot to turn the oven off after dinner - which obviously isn’t great, but also, my parents definitely did that at least once when I was a kid, and our house didn’t burn down, nor was it even a big deal. She also complains/worries multiple times about Ruby staying up an hour past her bedtime when at Josh’s, but later in the book Ruby leaves a sleepover at 3 am - so it’s okay for her to be up literally all night at a friend’s house, but not to watch a movie with her dad? I know I’m ranting a bit here, but I really did NOT want to be on Josh’s side, yet I couldn’t help it! I wish instead of Claire being overprotective, she’d been worrying about future plans he was making with Ruby, to make it clear that his leaving, rather than his parenting skills, are what concern her.This also would have made the emotional impact when she thinks he has left again much greater.
If you’re looking for a spicy queer romance, this might fit the bill for you - it’s pretty standard as romance novels go, and clearly I had some issues with it, but lots of other people were not bothered by those things and liked it, so take my review with a grain of salt! Personally, I will not be picking up the next book in the series.
I was excited going into this because of how many people I saw enjoying it but I have to say…I was not impressed. In my opinion, it was not very well written - a lot of the language felt very rote and overused, and none of the descriptions of the romance felt specific or unique. Obviously in romance novels there are certain emotional beats the readers expect you to hit, but I also expect a bit of creativity in the wording if possible, and this book really missed the mark.
I also found myself getting annoyed with a lot of the characters. Delilah still has a major chip on her shoulder about being excluded by Astrid & co when they were teenagers, to the point where it seems to be the basis for most of her personality and decisions. I get that she had a shitty childhood and that as a kid she couldn’t see the nuance of the situation, but to be thirty and still not able to look beyond your own experiences to realize that the other people involved were also children at the time?
As for Claire - I wish that the book had focused more on her fear that Josh would leave her & Ruby again, rather than her worries about Ruby’s safety when with him, because it felt like mixed messaging and sometimes I found myself getting annoyed on his behalf! (Not something I want to be feeling about the MC’s ex in a romance novel!) I felt like we were *told* that Claire was worried about him leaving and upsetting Ruby, but what we *saw* was that she thought her daughter was literally unsafe with him, which left me wondering why the fuck she would let Ruby even visit him? In the first few chapters, she shows up unannounced at his apartment on a night when Ruby is staying with him and freaks out because he forgot to turn the oven off after dinner - which obviously isn’t great, but also, my parents definitely did that at least once when I was a kid, and our house didn’t burn down, nor was it even a big deal. She also complains/worries multiple times about Ruby staying up an hour past her bedtime when at Josh’s, but later in the book Ruby leaves a sleepover at 3 am - so it’s okay for her to be up literally all night at a friend’s house, but not to watch a movie with her dad? I know I’m ranting a bit here, but I really did NOT want to be on Josh’s side, yet I couldn’t help it! I wish instead of Claire being overprotective, she’d been worrying about future plans he was making with Ruby, to make it clear that his leaving, rather than his parenting skills, are what concern her.
If you’re looking for a spicy queer romance, this might fit the bill for you - it’s pretty standard as romance novels go, and clearly I had some issues with it, but lots of other people were not bothered by those things and liked it, so take my review with a grain of salt! Personally, I will not be picking up the next book in the series.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Minor: Abandonment and Death of parent
wilybooklover's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
4.5
Such a fun, heartfelt queer romcom!
One of the things I enjoyed most about this book was how complex and nuanced the characters were. They felt like real, complicated people with real, complicated pasts. Even the side characters had complexity, especially Claire's daughter Ruby who is one of the most realistic child characters I've ever read. I found Delilah particularly relatable, in all of her spiky, petty glory. Claire was so lovely too, just a sweet woman trying to do the best for everyone and struggling with parenting. I loved how tender and vulnerable Claire and Delilah were with each other, even when they thought it was just temporary and casual. Surprisingly steamy for a romcom too, especially a sapphic one.
It was also interesting to see Delilah reexamine her memories of the past and realise they may just be a bit unreliable, that she and Astrid were just stuck in a loop of miscommunication and hurt feelings. I thought it was done really well (aside from the part where Delilah reads Astrid's diary — that felt like such a violation of her privacy).
There were a couple of things that bothered me — the diary reading, how much of the plot of this sapphic romance ultimately centred around a cishet man and a really terrible (borderline caricature-ish) one at that, the whole bet situation. But ultimately this was such a fantastic romance! Reminded me a lot of Book Lovers by Emily Henry with the small-town bookshop/sisters-at-odds vibes, but executed way better (in my opinion).
One of the things I enjoyed most about this book was how complex and nuanced the characters were. They felt like real, complicated people with real, complicated pasts. Even the side characters had complexity, especially Claire's daughter Ruby who is one of the most realistic child characters I've ever read. I found Delilah particularly relatable, in all of her spiky, petty glory. Claire was so lovely too, just a sweet woman trying to do the best for everyone and struggling with parenting. I loved how tender and vulnerable Claire and Delilah were with each other, even when they thought it was just temporary and casual. Surprisingly steamy for a romcom too, especially a sapphic one.
It was also interesting to see Delilah reexamine her memories of the past and realise they may just be a bit unreliable, that she and Astrid were just stuck in a loop of miscommunication and hurt feelings. I thought it was done really well (aside from the part where Delilah reads Astrid's diary — that felt like such a violation of her privacy).
There were a couple of things that bothered me — the diary reading, how much of the plot of this sapphic romance ultimately centred around a cishet man and a really terrible (borderline caricature-ish) one at that, the whole bet situation. But ultimately this was such a fantastic romance! Reminded me a lot of Book Lovers by Emily Henry with the small-town bookshop/sisters-at-odds vibes, but executed way better (in my opinion).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Death of parent, Grief, and Abandonment
Moderate: Bullying, Toxic relationship, Misogyny, Sexism, and Emotional abuse
Minor: Blood, Pregnancy, Cancer, Violence, Infidelity, and Injury/Injury detail