Add that to the fact that I did not care for May's character at all. She seems rude and insulting to Shani and apparently to everyone else. Her relationship with her dad is sort of magically fast-forward resolved and the conflicts seem a bit artificial because literally all that is needed is communication of any kind. The primary character arc as I saw it was about Shani learning to be her own person, independent of a best friend or girlfriend, but this is glossed over in the resolution as well so I'm not sure what the takeaway was.

Thank you to Kismet Books for the arc! If you’re a book lover in Wisconsin, pop over to Verona to give them a visit!

eBook Details

This is my second middle grade novel, and the first one with chronically ill characters. The entire main cast is both queer and chronically ill (they all have IBD). I was diagnosed with Crohn's when I was the same age as Al, our protagonist. I didn't have other people to talk to about my disease, and it felt embarrassing to have a chronic illness based almost entirely around the toilet. My other issue is that this was promoted as an enemies to lovers, romcom. I’m a big fan of the enemies to lovers trope. I love when there is dislike to even hate energy between two characters that can produce its own type of chemistry that when done well makes a great love chemistry. Unfortunately, here this was not a case of enemies, it was not even really a case of dislike. I don’t want to ruin how the characters meet, as it is interesting and I liked it, but it’s not a case of bad blood, just oddity and fate playing around. There are no enemies to lovers in this romcom and I hate to say this, but this isn’t really a romcom either. Just because a romance is cute and mostly feel good, does not a romcom make. I feel like people slap this label on everything nowadays, but the “com” part actually means “comedy” and I’m sorry, but I did not laugh once during this book so where is the comedy part? It was cute and sweet, but that means it is a “holiday romance” not an “enemies to lovers romcom”. The book reveals at around the 80% mark that part of the reason Shani has unresolved trauma from her break-up with her ex-girlfriend is because said ex-girlfriend sexually assaulted her.

Actually, pathetic doesn’t even begin to describe Shani. The reason she is not with her mother for the holiday season (which a major point of conflict throughout the book) is because she is so desperate to follow through on her internship. The book tells us again and again that Shani is ultra, super passionate about palaeontology. That being said, the moment her romance with May begins to develop, Shani stops caring about her internship. It gets so bad and she becomes so distracted by this fledgling romance that throws priceless, scientifically ground-breaking fossils in the bin. Let me reiterate: Shani, who we’ve been told reveres the field of palaeontology and for whom this internship is a dream-come-true throws priceless artefacts in the trash… Personally, if I were her manager, I would’ve been convicted of murder after that. As someone who had a huge (huge!) palaeontology and dinosaur obsession throughout my life and who did minor studies in the field during my time at university, I could not imagine liking someone so much that I throw fossils —literal million year-old artefacts that have ground-breaking scientific potential— in the bin, even if it were an accident.Attempted vehicular manslaughter was not part of Shani’s plan. She was supposed to be focusing on her monthlong paleoichthyology internship. She was going to spend all her time thinking about dead fish and not at all about how she was unceremoniously dumped days before winter break. Frankly, Shani is one of the worst —if not The Worst— protagonists I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading about. Not only is this girl utterly foul to her mother, she’s incredibly selfish, small-minded and pathetic. Another thing that was well done was showcasing two very messy, very stereotypical (and self-aware of it) lesbian teens in all their messy, immature glory.

now, to the actual story. it was a solid character study/coming of age with a side of romance YA book with some good rep and topics that aren't explored as often, that i've seen at least, in some ficton. namely a spoiler but also a heads up for, cw: sexual assault queer women assaulting other queer women, which is def important to talk abt, it happens, and in a lot of ways, i appreciated how this story showd shani dealing with what happened with sadie and how everyone in her life helped her when they found out. Kelly Quindlen meets Casey McQuiston in this sapphic Jewish twist on the classic Christmas enemies-to-lovers rom-com, as college freshman Shani’s internship is interrupted by a whirlwind winter fling. There's a way to write trauma-related outbursts, sexual assault storyline’s and relationship issues, but this isn't it. I don't believe the storyline or its ramifications were well executed at all. Sexual assault is hard to write about and have conversations about in general, but even more so when the book is attempting to be a feel-good, lighthearted teenage romance and keeping everything surface level. It really does a disservice to such an important topic. If you’re going to include healing from sexual abuse trauma in a romance novel, introducing this facet of the characters experiences must happen prior to the 80% mark and can���t be used as a pseudo plot-twist.(Note: While the book references Shani’s discomfort over being sexually intimate a few times, it only reveals the reason behind this quite late into the book.) My last straw was when she's thinking "I should confess this thing to May. This is the time to confess my thing. It's going to be bad if this thing comes out later, I should tell her." And she doesn't ever tell her the thing. At that point, I'm all "why am I bothering with this person who can't make a good choice to save her life?" Every time a thing is hard, she blows it. Morality is about when it's hard. The things you'd do anyway? Those aren't to your credit. And Shani never once passed that test.

There are several side characters from Beatrice, the 96-year-old, that Shani is staying with to Taylor, Shani’s best friend. They helped with bringing other parts of Shani’s personality out that wasn’t always shown with her inner dialogue’s. Raphael, the corgi Shani dog walks, was a very pleasant bonus. As a dog lover, I thought his scenes added to the light-heartedness to the story. I love it for being a sapphic Jewish holiday romance, but the actual execution was middling to low.

To be completely honest, this book is not good. I’ve become accustomed to a lot of heterosexual adult romances being pretty poorly written — after reading ‘The Spanish Love Deception’, the ‘Bromance Bookclub’ and snippets of Colleen Hoover’s novels (among others), I’m generally more surprised when a straight romance novel is actually well written. Well written romances, I previously believed, were reserved for the sapphics. I'm always less invested in stories where we skip from people antagonistic towards each other to suddenly hanging out and flirting and there's no journey about how we got here. It significantly reduces my investment and enjoyment in a relationship and that's what happened here. We go from Shani's mom nearly mowing down May to May shutting the door on Shani's face to suddenly hanging out at art galleries and 100% falling for each other and I feel like I missed something. hmm, okay. this is probably pretty solidly in the 3.5 stars camp, for me. overall, i would rec it, but it wasn't quite what i thought it was going to be? i think the 'enemies to lovers' isn't rlly accurate despite the way the main characters meet, it didn't rlly feel like it fits that trope. equally, i don't think this is a romcom. it's not rlly funny, it's def more of a character study/coming of age. a romance≠romcom, and i feel like a lot of marketing (esp with the more mainstream publishers) seem to just slap romcom onto anything with romance. i was also under the impression (based on the characters being freshmen in college) that this was more NA and less YA, so i had to adjust my expecations abt what the book was, a little. i think if those things were a little more upfront in the marketing, then i would have enjoyed it a little more, just bc there were adjustments being made while reading. Representation of queer women who are sexually assaulted by other queer women is important because it’s a topic that’s scarcely spoken of. However, ‘How to Excavate a Heart ‘ does not deal with this issue in a mature, nuanced or sensitive manner at all. If anything, it felt little more like a means to an end, a plot point to be whipped out at the very end to excuse the main character’s bad personality and then brushed over. This is a book that heavily features bodies, poop, and anxiety relating to those things. If you are sensitive to those topics, please take note and care.I am a hater of Hallmark movies. This is somewhat surprising since I do all around like the holiday season, unironically celebrate Festivus, and never fail to fall into a rut when it’s over for the year. As it turns out, the solution to my dislike for Hallmark movies is for them to star lesbians. There’s no shortage of sapphic rom-coms coming out this year that center on Hanukkah, Christmas, and/or the general month of December, and if this is the quality that all of them will be, then I welcome the seemingly sudden prominence of the sub-genre. This was a super cute holiday read, but I think it's also a solid read for anytime of year really! It's cute but goes a lot deeper too. It has a lot of cute and fun festive elements (also featuring lots of Jewish representation!) but it has a lot of merit outside of that as well. The main character is really interested in archeology which was a fun element. The main character Shani has a lot of struggles with relationships that I think many would find relatable. She carries trauma from her past girlfriend and watching her development as she worked through that was something I really appreciated. Shani also kind of starts to lose sight of what she personally wants because she gets a bit girl crazy, but I liked that it was portrayed as something she has to work through if that makes sense.