A review by letsgolesbians
Love in Focus by Lyla Lee

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

3.5

thank you forever publishing for the e-arc and physical copy of love in focus! this sapphic second chance romance is out now.

gemma (she/her) is a romance advice columnist and gets assigned a new project. the photographer on the project is her ex celeste (she/her), who she hasn't seen in eight years. the project forces them to spend time together and neither of them feels over the other, but the two of them are kind of messy and celeste is scared. gemma's chapters are written in first person, and celeste has fewer chapters that are written in third person.

i enjoyed how messy they were, it felt realistic for them not to be thinking logically because many of us don't, either, and i surprisingly didn't mind the switch between first and third person. the sex scenes felt realistic—not knowing what to do, not being used to something and running out of energy, needing breaks. the two of them cannot keep their hands (or mouths) off each other, and i was in the mood for an open-door book.

a few things that made me rate this a 3.5ish out of 5:

- the amatonormativity. the project gemma and celeste are working on is about "modern love," which everyone interprets as romantic love. one of the people they interview mentions other forms of love and gemma is like oh that's interesting, but then that thought doesn't really go anywhere. there are also a few moments of "everyone wants love" or "everyone loves love" even though aromantic people are mentioned at one point.

- lockdown is mentioned, which means covid has happened in this universe but there's no mention of public safety at alllllll and we all know how i feel about that

- there is one line i want to talk about because i've overthought it several times: "...only to discover that gemma had not only moved on, but she'd move on with a man. a lesbian's worst nightmare."

because on one hand, i understand the knee-jerk, immediate reaction of "ugh god men." we live in a patriarchal, capitalist society that values toxic masculinity, and it's easy to assume that someone is going to date a mediocre or terrible man and that can feel incredibly disappointing. i'm not going to pretend i think men are wonderful or that i think all of them deserve romantic or sexual attention from the wonderful women i know, and honestly i've thought the same thing about an ex. on the other hand, i understand how this is being read as biphobic, because we don't get to decide what other people do with their lives and we need to trust and allow people to make decisions for themselves, and those decisions include what genders to date, and celeste knew that gemma was bisexual. and then i continued thinking and it made me feel gross as a lesbian, like not being attracted to men is such a big part of our identity and we go around hating men all the time and we care more if an ex is dating a man than if they're dating someone who is abusive or racist etc. and after reading the rest of the book, it felt out of place for celeste to think--she was heartbroken that gemma had seemingly moved on so quickly and didn't mention or seem to care about who gemma moved on with. i don't know. but the line did make me uncomfortable and i wanted to call it out.

cws: biphobia; homophobia; infidelity; parent with cancer (in remission when the book starts)

 
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