A Lot Like Adios by Alexis Daria

This book is in the same world as You Had Me at Hola. The series is now called Primas of Power and is focused on the women who are all friends and cousins living in the Bronx.

Just like the first book, there were some great details. Book one had an intimacy coordinator on a tv show set and this one had very specific physical therapy vocabulary. Both details only an author who did plenty of research could have put in. The technical bits don’t read too formally and blend into the story well.

Gabe and Mich were high school BFFs who wrote a fanfic. The story of the fic is interspersed into the current-day interactions between the now-grown friends-to-lovers. If you were a fan of Fangirl and rejoiced when the Simon Snow Trilogy was written, you might get the same feels from reading Celestial Destiny (the fic they wrote).

For me, Gabe and Mich felt hollow, they weren’t quite complete people. Though I want to celebrate their bisexuality, it felt like a prop, rather than a meaningful part of their lives. I also found some of the commentary on a “healthy” lifestyle to be very ableist. Gym culture could be toxic, dieting and exercise can be triggering, and that wasn’t undressed at all.

I really wanted to like it, I kept reading to see it get more complex and it simply didn’t.

The sex scenes are explicit and many, so if you came for the spice, this one is spicy. -Sky