This was gorgeous! I loved this book. Former best friends Michelle and Gabriel have a second chance romance in this beautifully written novel. Before college, things blew up between them, and they both made mistakes that kept them apart for 13 years. By chance, they get thrown together due to their jobs and then ensues a glorious romance.

I cannot find fault in this novel. There was very minimal angst, which can easily be overdone. The protagonists were working with a believable preexisting relationship. They worked through their problems and actually communicated, even though there is always a bit of miscommunication. There were family issues and mental health issues (if only briefly touched on) but well handled. The chemistry between the couple was so hot (as were the sexy times). The third act conflict wasn't ridiculously convoluted and didn't take forever to resolve, nor did it happen too quickly. Everything was well paced, but I flew through reading this. I could not put it down. This will go on my re-reads list! ( )

I really meant to write something about the plot or the characters for this novel since my review for the last one was kind of minimal, but I honestly cannot remember enough about it to do that. I don’t think I can ever recall the main characters names at this point.

I was really hoping this would be better than the last but I guess you can call this book utterly forgettable part 2. ( )

This would have been a lot better without the fanfic and with a lot less detail in the sex scenes. ( )

Review will be posted at Love in Panels on 10/6/21.

I adore the Primas of Power and Alexis Daria's writing, so it's no surprise that A Lot Like Adiós was a quick, fun read for me.

Gabe and Michelle grew up right next to each other and were best friends until Gabe abruptly left for college on the other side of the country and cut all communications. Now he has to open a NYC location for his successful LA gym and Michelle is the best marketing pro in the NYC biz... and Gabe's partner has hired her. When Gabe realizes what's happened, he calls Michelle for the first time in 9 years and she demands that as part of her agreeing, he has to stay with her while he's in town. And of course they mend their relationship and explore the romantic and sexual feelings they'd been repressing all those years ago.

Second-chance romance isn't a favorite trope of mine, as I often struggle to hand-wave away the conflicts that were big enough to keep two people apart for years. This worked for me because Michelle was honest with herself most of the time. She knew she was mad at him and didn't pretend otherwise. Plus the "let's get it out of our system" banging was early and often, always an amusing premise for a romance reader. (It never works and the love interests always think it will. They make plans, we laugh.)

The only thing I had a hard time with was Gabe's relationship with his controlling parents. He left without telling anyone and then cut off his parents a couple years later at a family wedding, all because his parents were controlling and none of them were able to communicate in a healthy way. I don't have the ability to judge how this would read to others, but I'm estranged from one side of my family for a similar reason and the reconciliation in this book didn't work for me at all. It was too fast and felt to me like his father had suddenly changed and the ongoing estrangement was Gabe's fault for not staying in touch. Like I said, I'm too close to this.

Back to to the good stuff!

I bought A Lot Like Adiós in paperback but ended up reading it on audio, as is so often the case these days. The audio was well done and I zipped through in two afternoons.

Both main characters are bi, hurrah!

Mich and Gabe have lots of sex, but as usual Daria uses her sex scenes to look at some common--but not common in romance novels--aspects of sexual intimacy. For example, Mich doesn't usually bother trying to orgasm with a partner, while Gabe is into foreplay. So she's trying to get it over with but Gabe is trying to savor the experience. And *shocked face* they actually talk about it! Feeling like your pleasure is too much work or takes too long is a pretty common experience for women and I'm glad that Daria didn't treat it like Mich was just "repressed" or something. If you read You Had Me at Hola and appreciated the use of lube, you'll like this book for similar reasons.

Overall, this was a really solid read and I'm looking forward to the third (and last *cry*) prima's book! ( )