My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
I requested an ARC of this book solely based on the nonbinary rep. It’s exciting to see a range of queer rep and having those queer characters get a HEA in romance novels.
Examining the story, without taking into consideration the queer rep, I found myself not very invested in the romance. The cooking reality show aspect was nice, though. I’ve watched A LOT of cooking competitions, and that could be why I liked that arc of the story.
One thing that popped out for me was London’s almost interchangeable use of “nonbinary” and “trans”. I consider myself nonbinary, but do not consider myself trans, so I was confused with the way London’s character was presented throughout the book. This confusion is all on my part, clearly, and some research is on my to-do list.
As I mentioned above, I didn’t get the romance between London and Dahlia. To me, the connection between the two felt more like friendship rather than couple-ish. And I cannot forget to mention THAT SCENE with the toe that just completely turned me off, which sucks (heh) because it was early in their relationship once they gave into their feelings for each other.
Love and Other Disaster is a solid 3-star read for me, with the other .5-star for the nonbinary rep.
***Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.***