Mazey Eddings

This was such a fun read! I was in a reading slump for the longest time, and this just got that spark going again. Eva and Rylie are chef's kiss. These two characters are so relatable and lovable. The dynamic between the two had me kicking my feet and giggling! They have so much banter, and it felt so real to read about their past and how it brought them to the moment they sit in front of a camera to eat hot dogs. (If you know, you know)

I enjoyed reading this so much. The black cat FMC and show more the golden retriever MMC are a trope I will never pass on, and this is just that. Mazey does an incredible job of creating this very relatable story and making it magical, funny, loving, and more! show less

I love that Eddings wanted to bring us a character living with ADHD, but she brought us a character exhibiting no adult effort to make her life work given her ADHD. Both I and my son have serious ADHD, and we have worked really hard to create a framework where we can do what we need to do for ourselves and others. In so many ways ADHD is a superpower. We see the world differently than most, we seem to find more joy and humor in life than those around us. That said we know that we are not the show more center of the universe, that if we love others we need to be people they can rely upon. Lizzie Blake did not get that memo. We start with someone who is late to work nearly every day, but cannot be bothered to set an alarm. Someone who gets lost in reading on breaks, but cannot be bothered to set an alarm. Lizzie has a lot of one-night stands as stress relief (and for fun presumably) and yet does not pay enough attention to know that condoms expire (doesn't everyone know that?) She is shocked that expired condoms are not effective. Lizzy loses everything she borrows from her friends and yet still borrows things and loses or breaks them and does nothing to track those things, she regrets for a second that she has shown her friends no respect or care, but then shrugs and moves on (never offering to even replace things she lost.) I assure you it is hard, and sometimes despite all efforts things fall apart, but it is possible to structure your life in a way that honors the people who love and trust you and still have a good life with ADHD. The character Lizzie doesn't do that, and we are supposed to be okay with that. Eddings makes clear that we would be wrong to ask her to develop strategies to honor the trust others put in her. She does actually start to make an effort to do that late in the book-- in her late 20's, having not cared enough about others until then to learn to use a calendar, set alarms, or otherwise create protocols. She is all id, she is like a 3 year old with good boobs. Forgive me if I cannot celebrate a stunted narcissist with a diagnosis and access to medication and mental health services (she cannot be bothered to use) having a baby and being charged with her care. I want to call child protective services. I hate the way Eddings wrote this, and feel like she owes neurodivergent people an apology. Most of us actually try, and through effort mostly succeed. Sometimes our wiring gets the better of us, but we keep up the work.

Add to all of that the fact that the book is poorly written, and the non-Lizzy characters are ridiculous. Lizzie's mother is a soap opera villainess. Lizzie's S-in-L is Snow White. Rake is way too good to be true. (And what kind of name is "Rake" anyway? There is nothing it could be short for. Are his parents avid gardeners? I guess Rake is better than "Hoe" or "Compost" or "Garden Weasel."). Rake is a co-dependency nightmare who does nothing but shake his head good-naturedly when Lizzie robs him of sleep, employment and comfort, leaves his apartment in a shambles, and destroys his property.

I did not for a moment cheer for Lizzie and Rake to get together. This book was for me an anti-romance. Ugh! show less

[3.5] i LOVED the fmc, eva, in this!! she was punchy, quick-witted and so confident (at least on the exterior). i wasn’t crazy about the mmc, rylie, at least at first, but i did like watching their banter and quips at each other. one thing i definitely made a mental note of was that we got an onscreen therapy session, that was realistic, raw, and not skimmed over like other books. some times the actual relationship did feel a bit on-again off-again, but overall, pretty refreshing!!

thank show more you to netgalley and headline for the advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review. show less

Spoilers have been removed.

There were moments in A Brush with Love where I laughed so hard, I thought I was going to pull a muscle. That is the talent of Mazey Eddings, one moment she can make you want to cry a river and the next you are laughing until you snort (not like I did that…more than once…twice.)

Harper has two immediate goals in life – to finish dental school and get her top residency pick. After that, she will commit her life to helping people and making a difference. As far show more as she was concerned, there wasn’t room for anything else, no matter what her friends said. She spent most of her life building up walls, protecting herself, and doing what it took to manage her anxiety. What she didn’t plan for is a certain green eyed, jaw-dropping gorgeous man with a mind erasing dimple colliding with those walls and destroying all of her hard earned work. With graduation so close and her future set, Harper can’t get “gooey” over some boy. Declaring that despite the incredible chemistry her and Dan seem to have, she can only offer a friendship - setting off an epic battle between heart and mind that will leave no survivors.

I don’t think I exhaled until I finished this book. Talk about intensive! Mazey is the master of putting you into the shoes of her neurodiverse characters. Every feeling, the loss sense of control, the shifting of the world surrounding them, how they believe the world sees them – she hands it all to the reader as if we requested a fully immersive experience.

Don’t even get me started on Harper and Dan. Dan is an absolute daydream! A huge part of me wondered (especially since Mazey is a dentist), how much of his character is modeled after her boyfriend. If that man is even a fraction of the “swooniness” that is Dan, I am insanely jealous! As far as book boyfriend’s go, he just got bumped to the top of the list!

Asides for drooling over Dan, there were so many things to love about this book, the close friendships, the vulnerability, the support, and Mazey’s constant effort to remove the stigma around mental health, therapy, and seeking help. We never know what someone is going through and how our words can cut them and push their fears deeper.

Mazey also has the ability to create the most beautiful moments when her characters are intimate. It was no different when Harper and Dan slept together for the first time.

What got me the most is when we learned Harper’s “why”, why she had to be the best, had to succeed, what it all stood for, what it represented if she failed. When I finished reading that part, I took a moment and just said “Wow”.

I love Thu, Lizzie, and Indira! I hate that I read The Plus One first because I can’t remember what happens with Thu and Alex or Harper and Dan! Lizzie’s story is waiting for me in my TBR stack so hopefully that helps bridge the gap in my memory. For anyone who loves Abby Jimenez and Emily Henry, Mazey Eddings is right there, ready to win your heart. show less