Could’ve been a lot shorter, could’ve had more/better/different conflicts to drive the plot, but overall i am immensely grateful to live in a time and place where lesbian books like this are written and published and find their way to me. Thank you Ann McMan!

My family is from the South, so I get slow and meandering. My grandma could talk about the weather for nigh on two hours at a stretch. That said, Jericho is torturously slow, more sluggishly paced than molasses flowing in January. And it’s not just slow and meandering, it’s also weighted down with a strange admixture of snarky dialogue and saccharine flavoring. Reducing the dramatic tension still further, plot twists are signaled so far in advance and with such lack of subtlety that by the time a big moment arrives, only the most inattentive of readers could be even a bit surprised.

The molasses: Every mundane aspect of each scene is described in torturous detail. If someone goes to the store for groceries, we are told that they walked out to the parking lot, took out their car key ring, popped the trunk lid with a button on that very same key ring, stashed the grocery bags in the trunk (behind a mesh cargo net), and then snapped the trunk lid closed. Scintillating.

The snark: Maybe some find clever repartee to be an amusing pastime, but for me I wouldn’t even want to casually socialize with someone who’s always engaging in verbal one-upsmanship as Maddie – one of our two love interests – and her gay friend David do 24/7. I especially cannot imagine wanting to be in a relationship with someone who cannot hit the pause button on flippant. It would be exhausting.

A bigger turnoff was the constant, repetitive emphasis on the women’s femininity and beauty, their desirability to the sexual gaze of men. We hear over and over again about how gorgeous Maddie and Syd both are, and how men are slobbering and falling all over each other trying to get with them. I know Jericho isn’t unique in this – it’s a frequent trope in Sapphic fiction – but it gets tedious after a while. Not to mention, it’s heck of sexist.

I’m actually surprised I finished this one, as it was hard to relate to any of the flawless, two-dimensional characters. I guess I just kept naively hoping it would get better. My advice: read the other one-star reviews before plunking down your money and wasting your time on this one. Even though we're in the minority, we've got some convergent validity going for us.

3.5 so corny but so sweet

The book started out pretty well, but then the author started throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at it in terms of clichés and I can only stand so many of them in one book

Book of the year.

I’ll never forget Syd and Maddie

Not for me. Not sure why I kept at it but I gave up with about 20 pages left. I wish I'd given up after the first 20 pages, as I felt vaguely insulted and irritated throughout the whole thing.
Oh well...

Loved it! Loved the girls (lesbians), loved the guys (gay), loved the arbitrary characters, loved the story, loved the dialogue (funny and sharp), just loved it, loved it, loved it. Did I mention that I loved the dialogue? Especially between Maddie and David. And David and Michael. And Maddie and Syd. And Michael and Syd. Yip, loved it.