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A review by danierilily
Bed and Breakup by Susie Dumond
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book early.
Bed and Breakup is a second-chance romance between two lesbian "ex" wives who decide to renovate and sell the historic southern inn they still co-own, seven years post-split. Over the course of several months, they get to know each other all over again: hot they've changed, and how they haven't, and how they both regret how things ended between them.
Generally speaking, I liked this book! It was a little slow at points, and even as someone who generally like character-driven stories, it felt like there could have been a little more plot. I'm finding I don't have a lot to say, because there wasn't a ton worth gushing about, and there wasn't a ton worth criticizing, either. It was mostly just good.
I think one thing that makes second chance romances hard is that readers (or at least, this reader--I'm nosy) will want to take a side. Bed and Breakup presented both characters as having made mistakes, and they both groveled, but I just didn't buy into the idea of Molly actually really doing anything wrong. To me, it seems like they just realized that they were incompatible because they both had different idea of the future, which is fine. But instead, it was written that Molly was holding Robin back. I also would have loved more detail on the woman Robin left with during the initial breakup, because it wasn't totally clear to me how soon they got together, or how or when they met. Molly made it sound like they had run off together, like Robin might have been cheating, but they never say that explicitly, so it's hard to tell.
Also, it seemed like the race stuff was sort of thrown in--the Black Business Bureau came up at the beginning and as a way to help Molly throughout the story (getting her clients and a lawyer), but otherwise wasn't very prevalent, and those characters only existed in their small roles as clients. It would have been nice to see them become part of Molly and Robin's community. Everyone who is important to them is queer, but white--except Keyana. There's also the part where Keyana scolds Molly for asking a Black woman to lie for her in court, and Molly apologizes, and that's sort of the end of that. It's like a sensitivity reader flagged it for the author, and the solution was to just add in a throwaway line to acknowledge it instead of doing anything else to fix the issue. So in the end, it came out of nowhere and disappeared pretty easily, just as a blip.
All in all, though, I did like this book. I loved the town and world building and all the friends. I could have imagined a less perfect ending, but I'm glad these lesbians get a happy ending. 3.75 stars for me.
Bed and Breakup is a second-chance romance between two lesbian "ex" wives who decide to renovate and sell the historic southern inn they still co-own, seven years post-split. Over the course of several months, they get to know each other all over again: hot they've changed, and how they haven't, and how they both regret how things ended between them.
Generally speaking, I liked this book! It was a little slow at points, and even as someone who generally like character-driven stories, it felt like there could have been a little more plot. I'm finding I don't have a lot to say, because there wasn't a ton worth gushing about, and there wasn't a ton worth criticizing, either. It was mostly just good.
I think one thing that makes second chance romances hard is that readers (or at least, this reader--I'm nosy) will want to take a side. Bed and Breakup presented both characters as having made mistakes, and they both groveled, but I just didn't buy into the idea of Molly actually really doing anything wrong. To me, it seems like they just realized that they were incompatible because they both had different idea of the future, which is fine. But instead, it was written that Molly was holding Robin back. I also would have loved more detail on the woman Robin left with during the initial breakup, because it wasn't totally clear to me how soon they got together, or how or when they met. Molly made it sound like they had run off together, like Robin might have been cheating, but they never say that explicitly, so it's hard to tell.
Also, it seemed like the race stuff was sort of thrown in--the Black Business Bureau came up at the beginning and as a way to help Molly throughout the story (getting her clients and a lawyer), but otherwise wasn't very prevalent, and those characters only existed in their small roles as clients. It would have been nice to see them become part of Molly and Robin's community. Everyone who is important to them is queer, but white--except Keyana. There's also the part where Keyana scolds Molly for asking a Black woman to lie for her in court, and Molly apologizes, and that's sort of the end of that. It's like a sensitivity reader flagged it for the author, and the solution was to just add in a throwaway line to acknowledge it instead of doing anything else to fix the issue. So in the end, it came out of nowhere and disappeared pretty easily, just as a blip.
All in all, though, I did like this book. I loved the town and world building and all the friends. I could have imagined a less perfect ending, but I'm glad these lesbians get a happy ending. 3.75 stars for me.