Adorable without being cutesy, fluffy without being sappy, and made of spirit and sass, Dream On, Ramona Riley is a wonderful summer read. Its characters are complex, its tropes are utterly enjoyable, and its yearning is palpable. That said, I really wish Ashley Herring Blake would find any other sort of conflict to keep her lovers apart–I am so over leads whose unnecessary miscommunication has them giving each other the silent treatment. But, other than that, this one’s a winner.

Summer is descending on Ramona Riley, and she’s gobsmacked to learn that her favorite queer romcom novel, As if You Didn’t Know, will be filming a big screen version in small-town, small-minded Clover Lake, New Hampshire. This will finally add some excitement into Riley’s life. Once upon a time, she dreamed of going to art school to become a costume designer, but her father’s car accident sent her home to Clover Lake. She took up waitressing at the Clover Moon Cafe while helping him care for her younger sister, Olive. Twelve years later, Ramona’s life is in stasis. Will As If You Didn’t Know lift the lid on her entombed life? One of Ramona’s crushes, Noelle Yang, will co-star in the film – and so will Dylan Monroe, Ramona’s for-a-week-in-the-summer-years-ago-first-crush-and-kiss. Can she survive seeing her first kiss portray her favorite fictional character? Or even worse – having to deal with Dylan again?

Dylan has been trying to shed her bad girl past –which includes her nepo baby present. Her parents – Carrie and Jack – are two controversial rock stars whose messy unions and uncouplings would make Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham blush. Add the booze, drugs and everything else on top of that and Dylan went through one heck of an unstable childhood. Dylan herself has developed a reputation for playing problem child parts and just went through a terrible, very public break-up. She needs to do a nice, normal romcom where she plays a nice, normal person to rehab her public image ASAP. Spending the summer doing As if You Didn’t Know and going back to Clover Lake – where she spent one very nice summer in the middle of her parent’s halcyon fighting – sounds like a dream.

To Ramona’s horror, Dylan does not remember that kiss. But she is very sweet and cute. Can anyone blame Ramona for concealing her costuming designing experience as she hopes to restart her career? Can anyone blame Dylan for agreeing to fake a relationship with Ramona for the publicity, only to like her and fall into her own trap?

This all would have worked a lot better if our leads didn’t have a terrible lack of communication–which borders on lying– which they deal with by having sex… and more sex. The book earns a B rather than a DIK because, though I really liked Ramona and Dylan and I thought their romance was sweet, their interpersonal dynamic highly frustrated me.

The central conflicts – Dylan’s need to forgive her parents so she can get on with the business of an adult career, Ramona’s need to take a swing at the big time and see if she has costume designing chops – are great. They want to be taken seriously, and in that case they are lovable and understandable. But oh, the lies! The annoying lies.

I really liked the small-town setting and could related to the leads’ feeling of being put-upon. I’m very excited to read more about Ramona’s BFF April, who will be the heroine of the next book, and her sister. I even liked Dylan’s desperate, overbearing parents. But Dream On, Ramona Riley gets dinged because its characters oughta, y’know, talk about how they feel.