I WANTED TO LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH. And in a lot of ways, I did! I spent a good chunk of this book thinking it was going to be a 5-star read. Dade does a lot of things right: as silly as she may seem, I found Athena to be one of her most relatable characters to date (granted this might be because I'm a teacher who is currently planning to quit the profession and would love to have a rich man so I didn't have to worry about making rent, BUT). I got so excited when she depicted Athena picking at her fingernails -- that's not a thing that we see in romance often and I really felt seen. I think her overall depiction of Athena's major depressive episode felt very real, and she had great chemistry with Matthew. Despite the overuse of the term "Professor Google", I really think Athena was a near perfectly written FMC.

Which makes it sound like my issue with the book is the depiction of Matthew, but it's not...until the end. Once the two finally get together, everything starts to move way too fast.

I think she did a better job of writing a virgin than a lot of authors do, but I do wonder if that had something to do with the fact that almost immediately after having sex, Matthew was basically making wedding plans. They hook up, she leaves to celebrate Christmas with her parents, and the third act breakup happens right after she returns (it's as if they didn't have a chance to actually be together yet since all of their romantic moments since then have occurred in the bedroom but I digress). AND THEN. In his groveling, he fully tells her he plans to marry her?! And she's excited about this?! And while we don't get a proposal, we do find out in the epilogue that they got married quickly <b>and that his brother was not only supportive, but acted as their only witness?!</b>

I'm sorry, but I'm just not buying it. I get the idea that Matthew, a normally very careful man who has everything planned out, has his life turned around by Athena and he starts to make out of character decisions and that's lovely and I love that for him. But idk, maybe see if you can actually stay together for more than 30 minutes before all of that. Lmao.

All that said, I really enjoyed most of the story! I just couldn't accept the rushed ending and it really pulled me out of the rest of the story.