3.5 stars - liked this a whole bunch, but it got resolved far too quickly for me. still immensely readable, though, and Mayberry is currently holding a record for dudes I've read who are not dicks.

I read through her Hollywood series in a day after this and it's really clear that Mayberry is so good at creating characters who would be good for each other and creating reasonable tension and rooting them all in something realistic but not melodramatic, and it's really great to see how good they'll be for each other long-term, but I want to see that given more space, and Mayberry needs to find a place to write something longer than 14 chapters. eagerly awaiting longer books. (Other Side of Us is 17 chapters + prologue and epilogue - was that all that made me give it 5 stars? will think about this.)