EVERYTHING WRONG WITH DAMSELS AND DINOSAURS (A BOOK I READ TWICE, ON PURPOSE, LIKE A FUNCTIONING ADULT)

The review was supposed to go up on the 26th. It is the 28th. I would like to formally blame my ADHD, the World Cup, Pride, and the fact that I read the entire book again instead of writing about it — which, honestly, tells you most of what you need to know before I’ve said a single critical word. But I have critical words. So let’s do the bit where it sounds like I hated Damsels and Dinosaurs, and then I pull the rug out at the end, because that is genuinely how reading this book felt. The case for the prosecution Poppy Fletcher is too good at things. Our heroine gets shipped off to her reclusive aunt’s tropical island to save the family’s collapsing honey business, and along the way she just… handles everything. Competent is great. Flawlessly competent is a vibe killer, because if the lead can’t fail, nothing she does has any weight. I kept waiting for the moment she’d be in over her head. It mostly didn’t come. Seppie exists to be a brother. Seppie is Poppy’s betrothed and also the…