No Words

Disclaimer: I am a long time Cabot fan.
I was super pumped for this book and reserved from the library the first moment I got. And I'll admit I read it pretty quickly. Like always, Cabot's prose style is extremely readable and turns pages. Elements like the book within the book were fun. I also enjoyed both the variety of author personalities and the fact that none of the characters were perfect 1:1 for actual famous authors. The author/ fan interactions also felt cute and real. Also, I will admit that I enjoyed the cat puns.
The (non)- spoiler bad.
- The central “conflict” never felt fully explained. Every time it came up, it felt like the characters were saying “Well, you have to understand....” without ever actually resolving the issue.
- The Harry Potter mention. I totally respect people who love Harry Potter, it was a part of their childhood etc. That being said, indirectly promoting Harry Potter in a published work is just unnecessary at this point. Some of your readers have been traumatized/hurt by J.K Rowlings very public views and at this point HP references take me out of the story. If you must mention a book of the genre, use Circle of Magic etc. ( This is not related to me subtracting stars, but I felt I should mention it. Some people may not want to read this book because of this mention.)
- The main character has like...way too little respect for other people's privacy. It felt invasive and gross.
Potential spoilers beyond this point!
I'm sorry, but this romance plot is completely non-sensical. He said something mean about an author who was also plagiarized *which was completely unneeded*. He could mentioned how badly their writing styles mesh because they write in wildly different genres. Therefore plagiarizing both is just weird. And then she *wildly* overreacts. Refusing to even attend the same convention? Really?? I get not wanting to socialize with him/ not wanting to be on the same panel. Totally reasonable. But she acts like he led a campaign against her or something. It makes the character come across super melodramatic and less likeable compared to the rest of the book. And then! She tries to flesh out a characters background using his personal life. Like, using someone as a vague inspiration is one thing. Diving into his super private business because apparently you can't create your own tragic back story for a character is another. It just felt *super gross.* True, he wrote an entire book that was loosely inspired her, because he thought she was hot. In comparison, it still felt less squicky. Points returned for : no stupid lying, hilarious mentions of their relationship in the press, emails being at the end of the book, excerpts from authors book, and nods to previous Little Bridge characters.