Late Bloomer

PUB DATE: April 16th 2024
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC audiobook copy of Late Bloomer! Here is my honest review.

Late Bloomer was such a fun and cozy low stakes romance! It's grumpy/sunshine, forced proximity, there's queer and lesbian representation, as well as autism and nuerodivergent representation!

Words genuinely cannot explain how much I LOVED the neurodivergent representation in this book as a queer autistic person myself! I felt myself really relating to Pepper specifically and honestly she may be my favorite character in this entire book!

This book was a little cringey and cheesy at times, but regardless, I ate it up! I'm almost positive that this audio production made me love the book EVEN MORE! I love how truly southern some of the characters accents are, and the Narrator did a great job at bringing this novel to life!

I will say, this book made me realize how much I don't care about flower farms, or flower competitions, or flowers in general. So when anything of the sort came up I was a little bored, but not to the point where it was unbearable.

The romance between Pepper and Opal was so extremely cute! I did at times feel like there wasn't much chemistry between them, and I found their banter to be somewhat awkward, but by the end of the book I was absolutely in love with both of them and their dynamic!

If you're looking for a sapphic, cute and cheesy, cozy romance, Late Bloomer is definitely the book for you! The nuerodivergent rep was probably my favorite aspect of this book by far. Such a nice read!