Despite the criticism that will shortly follow, I was pleasantly surprised that this was readable, for the most part enjoyable and not eye roll-worthy trash. That being said, inviting comparison to Austen is courageous and unlikely to end well.

The characters had better texture and depth than most romance novels, with the exception of a very standardly two-dimensional Wickham. Trisha in particular felt like a person that could exist, whereas DJ was often swallowed up by the trope of unreasonably hating someone for there to be a plot. There was such a tantalizing reach beyond stereotypical romance devices, which made their inevitable and lazy use all that more tiring. I will gladly start the petition to permanently remove "worry", "awareness" and "core" from romance author's vocabularies. Gag gag gag gag, automatic skim.

In addition, some parts tried too hard to prove that they were checking off every single box of being culturally and socially relevant to today. No, you don't not have to address racism AND class conflict AND MeToo AND sexismAND child abuse. It just made it overstuffed, artificial and grasping at times.

I'll give the next book in the series a shot and see if I end up skimming as much or more of it as this one.