Tell Me How You Really Feel

Fame and frequent misunderstandings complicate the friends-to-lovers relationship at the center of this cute if somewhat belabored contemporary from Cayouette (One Last Shot). College friends Maeve and Finn started their sex and relationship podcast, Tell Me How You Really Feel, after moving to New York City upon graduation. Years later, they’re offered a life-changing deal with Streamify that would see them moving to L.A. for three years. The problem is, they can no longer stand each other. Cayoutte teases out what happened by toggling between past and present, revealing that Maeve and Finn did enter into a romantic relationship before everything went wrong. Communication issues abound, exacerbated by the class difference between these two: Maeve has struggled to get where she is today, while Finn is the privileged child of celebrities. Their road to romance is so rocky it comes with not one but two third act breakups. Readers with a low tolerance for the miscommunication trope will struggle, but Cayoutte’s exploration of workplace romance and frank discussion of the gender pay gap make this valuable. Even with its flaws, there’s plenty of sweetness here to make the happy ending worth the wait. (May)