SEP is such a mixed bag for me, I’m still avoiding the end of the Stars series TBH.

I seem to have liked it a bit better than you, and would give it a B without the minus. Your review hits all the spots I also noted when reading, my emphasis and my enjoyment just came out a bit different from yours.

In all, I am sad to say that I have lost my trust in SEP – she has a way of including my utter wall-bangers in her books – such as public humiliation scenarios, obsessive behavior of an abusive kind in the heroine, TSTL plot points, whole communities who first hate then love the heroine, magic healing sex, to name the ones I remember most – and so each book of hers is a minefield. Wonderful writing, but I cannot really relax while reading her books the first time.

So, I have lowered my expectations of SEP books over the years, and expect at least irritations in every book. I tend to wait for reviews, or to wait for the paperback, and all this is sad and hard because I used to love her so much!

In this one, she has grown as an author for me, her heroine was so much better, her hero as well, and I was satisfied. Not euphoric, not really “aaaah, so good”, but satisfied. Better than her last two Chicago novels, and by far better than her last non-series books.

Details:

1. Yes, the beginning dragged a bit, and both characters prejudices, plus SEP’s over the top way of making them behave like idiots, at the start, was irritating. It went on a bit too long for me, for two adults who actually have common sense, as shown in the rest of their lives. –> Asking instead of assuming is not that hard, children and older teenagers manage it often, and once they did that, things changed in a good way, rapidly.
2. I really loved the way the two characters both took their careers very seriously, Olivia even more than Thad, and how Thad thought it through and grew up, to be really supportive, and understand her passion for singing, and how he decided to be a partner worthy of her, and was. This is still an unusual romance topic, having two adult characters find a way to be both happy and in very high profile careers – that was very good. -> Until the end I had the fear that it would end up being cringe-worthy, with Olivia not being herself anymore, for LOOOOVE. It did not happen, and the book is on my re-read list, I want to see whether I like it even more now that I know that SEP is not going to pull the rug out from under Olivia’s career. The book might even become a B+ based on the re-read.
3. Yes, the “Olivia stalking” was all over the place, and irritating, because it seemed both serious and then again not serious – as in a conflict getting settled with some screaming, or stupid pranks. –> In the end, it was better than I expected it to be, in the sense of being more real = a lot of weird things were happening from different sides – which is how real life goes – and the final explanation being a whisper, not a bang – again which is how real life often goes. However, better does not mean good – this whole plot part was not satisfying, emotionally, the way it all went.
4. The fabricated story at the start irritated me less than you. I have a different perception – not “infinitesimal” – of the many ways in which all sexes seem to behave horribly in matters of a sexual nature to each other – I have by now personally met quite a few cases of men being abused in various ways, some quite ruinously. Without wanting this to be the main point of my comment, I would like to just say this much.

(I utterly hated “Dance Away with Me” to the point of returning the book. In that one, all of SEP’s worst features really kicked in, for me. She is truly “untrustworthy”, as in 50:50 chance of a decent book, and always always some irritations, for me, by now).