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marmaladereads 's review for:
Love in Focus
by Lyla Lee
This was so so cute. Celeste and Gemma dated for over a year in college, then suddenly and unexpectedly lost touch, and Gemma moved on to date a man. Years later, Gemma finds herself newly single (and dumped) and also put on a work assignment with Celeste, whom she never expected to see again. The second hand romance that unfolds is heartfelt, sometimes hilarious, and infused with local area details and culture that I loved.
The San Francisco Bay Area references are top notch, especially with so many Korean culture highlights. I'm all about the instagrammable cafes that Celeste and Gemma visit. I also really enjoyed the workplace aspect of this as Celeste and Gemma are forced to work together on a series of interviews / photoshoots. I absolutely melted when Celeste and Gemma interviewed the older sapphic couple and everything that came up with that. The Asian Queer Immigrant feelings are so good in this. The feelings between Gemma and Celeste, however, are somewhat lackluster. I enjoyed their ending but didn't find myself hardcore rooting for them.
The San Francisco Bay Area references are top notch, especially with so many Korean culture highlights. I'm all about the instagrammable cafes that Celeste and Gemma visit. I also really enjoyed the workplace aspect of this as Celeste and Gemma are forced to work together on a series of interviews / photoshoots. I absolutely melted when Celeste and Gemma interviewed the older sapphic couple and everything that came up with that. The Asian Queer Immigrant feelings are so good in this. The feelings between Gemma and Celeste, however, are somewhat lackluster. I enjoyed their ending but didn't find myself hardcore rooting for them.
I found it especially jarring that, while Gemma's POV is in first person and sounds approachable and inviting, Celeste's POV (which is infrequent) is entirely in third person, and sounds cold and detached from the events rather than giving a unique perspective into Celeste's point of view. This is even more pronounced on audio with the chosen narrators for this book. Natalie Naudus is absolutely darling with her narration as Gemma and it is full of inflection and emotion. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy Catherine Ho's narration as Celeste. It felt flat and detached and made Celeste seem like a very unapproachable character. I think I found myself really disliking Celeste based on the narration alone, or maybe it was the third person POV combined with the flat narration? I wish this book had been entirely from Gemma's POV, as Celeste's chapters felt like they took away from an otherwise darling story.
I received a free copy of this book from Forever Publishing, and a free copy of the audio from Hachette Audio. Thank you both! Thoughts are my own.