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A review by mweis
Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings
3.5
*I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
This cover is everything! And then I saw it was an opposites attract sapphic romcom with two neurodiverse main characters and I knew I had to read this.
Let's start with what I loved. Opal and Pepper are both incredibly well fleshed out main characters and I really liked them and related to them both in a lot of ways. Opal is a disaster bisexual who probably has some form of autism and/or ADHD but hasn't been able to get a diagnosis because the testing as an adult is ridiculously convoluted and expensive. She's trying to find her place in the world when she wins the lottery and decides to buy a flower farm (off Facebook Marketplace?). That flower farm is home to Pepper, who is autistic and still dealing with the grief of her grandmother's death and her traumatic childhood with a flighty mom. For reasons, when the two meet up they decide they should both stay at the farm.
Honestly, the plot requires a lot of suspension of belief but I didn't really mind because I was enjoying the ride. That being said, I had to pause reading this at about the 70% mark and then really had no desire to pick it back up. I did and I enjoyed the ending but I think because I was forced to leave the world Eddings built here, it made me really sit with how unbelievable the plot was and I was less invested in the story. That might be something particular to my reading experience, but I thought it was worth noting.
Overall, I thought this was a fun escapist time. I haven't read any of Eddings' other work, though I know they have been popular. I'd be interested in checking out more of her work because I liked the writing and I liked the neurodiverse representation.
This cover is everything! And then I saw it was an opposites attract sapphic romcom with two neurodiverse main characters and I knew I had to read this.
Let's start with what I loved. Opal and Pepper are both incredibly well fleshed out main characters and I really liked them and related to them both in a lot of ways. Opal is a disaster bisexual who probably has some form of autism and/or ADHD but hasn't been able to get a diagnosis because the testing as an adult is ridiculously convoluted and expensive. She's trying to find her place in the world when she wins the lottery and decides to buy a flower farm (off Facebook Marketplace?). That flower farm is home to Pepper, who is autistic and still dealing with the grief of her grandmother's death and her traumatic childhood with a flighty mom. For reasons, when the two meet up they decide they should both stay at the farm.
Honestly, the plot requires a lot of suspension of belief but I didn't really mind because I was enjoying the ride. That being said, I had to pause reading this at about the 70% mark and then really had no desire to pick it back up. I did and I enjoyed the ending but I think because I was forced to leave the world Eddings built here, it made me really sit with how unbelievable the plot was and I was less invested in the story. That might be something particular to my reading experience, but I thought it was worth noting.
Overall, I thought this was a fun escapist time. I haven't read any of Eddings' other work, though I know they have been popular. I'd be interested in checking out more of her work because I liked the writing and I liked the neurodiverse representation.