A review by clairebartholomew549
Night Shift by Annie Crown

emotional hopeful lighthearted 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

This was fun and sweet, and definitely written for me - I love reading romance novels, always have, and in college this would have been an absolute dream. Kendall and Vincent are the definition of cinnamon rolls, and their conversations are lovely and endearing. I appreciated how much of the book is sex scenes, and the sex is really well-written and detailed. My one qualm is that sometimes the dialogue felt so, so forced. I appreciate that this generation of romance writers are committed to diversity and to dispelling heteronormativity and the sexist tropes of past romances, but the way Crown went about it at times jolted me out of the book. No college kid - especially a star basketball player, no matter how well-informed and progressive he is - would, in an introductory conversation about majors, ask whether the school's English department was diverse??? That was baffling. And it was a super weird conversation when Harper announced she was tired of being the strong black woman and Kendall said she was crying white woman tears and had reduced Nina to the spicy Latina. It just didn't feel genuine, and it took me out of it. I respect what Crown was going for, but I think it could have been done a lot more seamlessly.