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The Cabots #3
Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots
New York City, 1973
Daniel Cabot doesn’t really know what he’s doing with his life. He’s lost faith in himself, his future, and maybe the world. The only things he knows that he cares about are the garden in the empty lot next to his crumbling East Village apartment building and his best friend.
Alex Savchenko has always known that he’s…difficult. Prickly, maybe, if you’re feeling generous. But maybe that’s the kind of personality it takes to start a low-income pediatrics clinic in one of Manhattan’s most troubled neighborhoods. When Daniel stumbles into his life, Alex doesn’t expect him to stay—most people don’t. And when Alex develops useless, inconvenient feelings for his new friend, he does what he’s always done, and tells himself that he isn’t feeling anything at all.
Daniel, though, has always worn his heart on his sleeve, and he isn’t stopping now.
Sometimes when things seem to be falling apart, it means there’s room for something incredible to grow.
Daniel Cabot doesn’t really know what he’s doing with his life. He’s lost faith in himself, his future, and maybe the world. The only things he knows that he cares about are the garden in the empty lot next to his crumbling East Village apartment building and his best friend.
Alex Savchenko has always known that he’s…difficult. Prickly, maybe, if you’re feeling generous. But maybe that’s the kind of personality it takes to start a low-income pediatrics clinic in one of Manhattan’s most troubled neighborhoods. When Daniel stumbles into his life, Alex doesn’t expect him to stay—most people don’t. And when Alex develops useless, inconvenient feelings for his new friend, he does what he’s always done, and tells himself that he isn’t feeling anything at all.
Daniel, though, has always worn his heart on his sleeve, and he isn’t stopping now.
Sometimes when things seem to be falling apart, it means there’s room for something incredible to grow.
230 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 15, 2022
71 people are currently reading
1201 people want to read
About the author
Cat Sebastian
27 books5,113 followersCat Sebastian has written sixteen queer historical romances. Cat’s books have received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist.
Before writing, Cat was a lawyer and a teacher and did a variety of other jobs she liked much less than she enjoys writing happy endings for queer people. She was born in New Jersey and lived in New York and Arizona before settling down in a swampy part of south. When she isn’t writing, she’s probably reading, having one-sided conversations with her dog, or doing the crossword puzzle.
The best way to keep up with Cat’s projects is to subscribe to her newsletter.
Before writing, Cat was a lawyer and a teacher and did a variety of other jobs she liked much less than she enjoys writing happy endings for queer people. She was born in New Jersey and lived in New York and Arizona before settling down in a swampy part of south. When she isn’t writing, she’s probably reading, having one-sided conversations with her dog, or doing the crossword puzzle.
The best way to keep up with Cat’s projects is to subscribe to her newsletter.
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October 22, 2022This isn’t really a review of the book, just the portrayal of neurodivergence. There was a lot to like in this book, but I’ll let other reviews speak to that.
I’m usually wary of books with characters the author has labeled “neurodivergent,” because so often that simply means the character will be autism-coded and fit all of the major stereotypes of what autism looks like. Neurodivergence is much bigger than autism, and there’s a huge range of neurodivergent experiences in the world—neurodivergent people are just as diverse as neurotypical people, after all. Diagnoses overlap and are often difficult to untangle in real life, and with real-life people you can’t just look at their outwardly observable behaviors to determine their diagnosis.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of romances with neurodivergent characters don’t reflect this reality at all. The same limited number of stories is told over and over again, and in particular, authors usually only write about autism and ADHD, though they give themselves plausible deniability by using only the “neurodivergent” label and nothing more specific.
As an autistic person who tries to read about as many different neurodivergent experiences as possible, some of my best reading experiences have been when books by other neurodivergent people shine a light on the myriad ways our experiences are both similar and different. I’ve learned so much from reading about others’ experiences and the complicated ways various diagnoses manifest themselves.
I wish I could say that this book was one of those experiences, but it wasn’t. My past experiences with Cat Sebastian tell me this book was almost certainly written with good intentions, but the execution fell flat. I was able to predict before reading a single page exactly what Alex’s character would be like, because he is the same collection of stereotypes that writers in all forms of fictional media have been using as shorthand for “autistic” for a very long time. And although Sebastian hasn’t specified, it’s highly unlikely this character is not meant to be autistic, because I just don’t see how you accidentally write a character with basically all of the major autism stereotypes. In any event, someone knowledgeable about neurodivergence should be aware of the stereotypes and able to navigate them, regardless of what diagnosis they intend the character to have, and that was not done here.
Nine out of ten “neurodivergent” characters written by non-autistic authors will have the following traits: bad at any and all conversations, and socially awkward in a way that’s chalked up to not caring about social rules; rigid, in that they adhere to a strict, unchanging daily or weekly schedule and prefer for things to always be the same because they believe their way of doing things is the most logical, efficient, or correct; punctual and fastidious; overly literal, often emotionless, and usually humorless; and with sensory issues that can be easily accommodated, such as being picky about food (but not intolerably so) and not liking loud or crowded places. There will be little recognition of why these or any other traits develop, or how they are necessary to allow the person to function and to regulate their emotions and nervous system.
Any traits that are truly difficult, disabling, uncomfortable for neurotypical people, and that can’t be fully accommodated by gentle acceptance from the love interest will be omitted: the character won’t have special interests, stims, executive functioning differences, sensory processing issues that affect their daily life, pragmatic language differences that cannot be overcome by sufficient familiarity with a person, neuromotor issues, and so on (and they definitely won’t have any traits typically associated with other diagnoses). Even if the character isn’t diagnosed, they’ll be fully aware of all of their autistic traits, able to correctly attribute their issues to their traits, and, by the end of the book, will fully accept them, as will their love interest, who will often be able to innately understand the autistic character’s needs in a way the autistic character cannot. The autistic character will probably require some form of “management” from their non-autistic partner.
Portrayals like this feel hollow to me because they don’t look at what it’s like to live with these traits on a daily basis. The character will often seem like they’re able to simply put their autism away in a box and ignore it thanks to the acceptance of their partner. There’s much more focus on what it's like for the non-autistic person to live with an autistic person, not what it's like to be an autistic person in a neurotypical world. And above all, the love interest and the narrative will never, ever let you forget that the autistic character is weird and different and most people they meet have a hard time getting along with them, but not the love interest and maybe a few friends, who are special.
There are so many autistic and other neurodivergent stories that are left out of current “neurodivergent representation” in romance. You almost always have to turn to ownvoices stories to get something that feels real. I wish more authors would take the time to read the stories being told by neurodivergent people and reflect those in their writing. Where are all the autistic people with ADHD? Neurodivergences other than autism, ADHD, and dyslexia? Non-speakers? Trans autists? Autistic people with excellent pragmatic language skills? Neurodivergent people who can’t reliably work? People who need daily accommodations? Where is the vast majority of the neurodivergent community that doesn’t fit into the little tiny boxes that romance authors keep trying to put us in? And where is the concern about how harmful it is to continue to perpetuate stereotypes of what autism and other neurodivergences look like? Those harms are very real and present on a daily basis for us, but are apparently easily ignored by authors who are personally unaffected by them.
I really love Cat Sebastian’s work and have always trusted her to portray diverse experiences with nuance and care. The Cabots series is one of my all-time favorites and I was maybe more excited about getting another Cabot book than any other release this year. So it was really disappointing to read the same stereotypical character I’ve read in so many other books, when I was hoping against hope after reading the content note that this might be a book that carefully explored the complex real-life experience of a fellow neurodivergent person. It was painful to be reminded, yet again, of why I keep having conversations with other autistic people about how telling people you’re autistic probably won’t actually help you (and will most likely hurt you) because people only know the stereotypes and will hold you to them.
I want to give Sebastian the benefit of the doubt here, but after reading so many books that make “quirky” autistic characters feel like a trend, it’s hard. It’s not that there’s no room in fiction for these stereotypical traits, but they have to be written with intention, and I think writers owe it to their neurodivergent readers to make their intentions clear. Slapping a vague “neurodivergent” label on a book with no further explanation and no discussion in the acknowledgements of any research or sources just isn’t cutting it for me anymore, because too many authors have written poor neurodivergent representation to get diversity points and refused to take any accountability for it. It really isn’t hard to tell when people are writing from real-life experience and when they aren’t—and when they’re writing for their neurodivergent audience vs their neurotypical one. Sebastian just didn’t do enough in this book to earn my trust as an autistic reader.
I wish neurodivergent representation in romance was opening people’s eyes to the incredibly diverse experiences in the neurodivergent community. Unfortunately, there’s still a very long way to go.
I’m usually wary of books with characters the author has labeled “neurodivergent,” because so often that simply means the character will be autism-coded and fit all of the major stereotypes of what autism looks like. Neurodivergence is much bigger than autism, and there’s a huge range of neurodivergent experiences in the world—neurodivergent people are just as diverse as neurotypical people, after all. Diagnoses overlap and are often difficult to untangle in real life, and with real-life people you can’t just look at their outwardly observable behaviors to determine their diagnosis.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of romances with neurodivergent characters don’t reflect this reality at all. The same limited number of stories is told over and over again, and in particular, authors usually only write about autism and ADHD, though they give themselves plausible deniability by using only the “neurodivergent” label and nothing more specific.
As an autistic person who tries to read about as many different neurodivergent experiences as possible, some of my best reading experiences have been when books by other neurodivergent people shine a light on the myriad ways our experiences are both similar and different. I’ve learned so much from reading about others’ experiences and the complicated ways various diagnoses manifest themselves.
I wish I could say that this book was one of those experiences, but it wasn’t. My past experiences with Cat Sebastian tell me this book was almost certainly written with good intentions, but the execution fell flat. I was able to predict before reading a single page exactly what Alex’s character would be like, because he is the same collection of stereotypes that writers in all forms of fictional media have been using as shorthand for “autistic” for a very long time. And although Sebastian hasn’t specified, it’s highly unlikely this character is not meant to be autistic, because I just don’t see how you accidentally write a character with basically all of the major autism stereotypes. In any event, someone knowledgeable about neurodivergence should be aware of the stereotypes and able to navigate them, regardless of what diagnosis they intend the character to have, and that was not done here.
Nine out of ten “neurodivergent” characters written by non-autistic authors will have the following traits: bad at any and all conversations, and socially awkward in a way that’s chalked up to not caring about social rules; rigid, in that they adhere to a strict, unchanging daily or weekly schedule and prefer for things to always be the same because they believe their way of doing things is the most logical, efficient, or correct; punctual and fastidious; overly literal, often emotionless, and usually humorless; and with sensory issues that can be easily accommodated, such as being picky about food (but not intolerably so) and not liking loud or crowded places. There will be little recognition of why these or any other traits develop, or how they are necessary to allow the person to function and to regulate their emotions and nervous system.
Any traits that are truly difficult, disabling, uncomfortable for neurotypical people, and that can’t be fully accommodated by gentle acceptance from the love interest will be omitted: the character won’t have special interests, stims, executive functioning differences, sensory processing issues that affect their daily life, pragmatic language differences that cannot be overcome by sufficient familiarity with a person, neuromotor issues, and so on (and they definitely won’t have any traits typically associated with other diagnoses). Even if the character isn’t diagnosed, they’ll be fully aware of all of their autistic traits, able to correctly attribute their issues to their traits, and, by the end of the book, will fully accept them, as will their love interest, who will often be able to innately understand the autistic character’s needs in a way the autistic character cannot. The autistic character will probably require some form of “management” from their non-autistic partner.
Portrayals like this feel hollow to me because they don’t look at what it’s like to live with these traits on a daily basis. The character will often seem like they’re able to simply put their autism away in a box and ignore it thanks to the acceptance of their partner. There’s much more focus on what it's like for the non-autistic person to live with an autistic person, not what it's like to be an autistic person in a neurotypical world. And above all, the love interest and the narrative will never, ever let you forget that the autistic character is weird and different and most people they meet have a hard time getting along with them, but not the love interest and maybe a few friends, who are special.
There are so many autistic and other neurodivergent stories that are left out of current “neurodivergent representation” in romance. You almost always have to turn to ownvoices stories to get something that feels real. I wish more authors would take the time to read the stories being told by neurodivergent people and reflect those in their writing. Where are all the autistic people with ADHD? Neurodivergences other than autism, ADHD, and dyslexia? Non-speakers? Trans autists? Autistic people with excellent pragmatic language skills? Neurodivergent people who can’t reliably work? People who need daily accommodations? Where is the vast majority of the neurodivergent community that doesn’t fit into the little tiny boxes that romance authors keep trying to put us in? And where is the concern about how harmful it is to continue to perpetuate stereotypes of what autism and other neurodivergences look like? Those harms are very real and present on a daily basis for us, but are apparently easily ignored by authors who are personally unaffected by them.
I really love Cat Sebastian’s work and have always trusted her to portray diverse experiences with nuance and care. The Cabots series is one of my all-time favorites and I was maybe more excited about getting another Cabot book than any other release this year. So it was really disappointing to read the same stereotypical character I’ve read in so many other books, when I was hoping against hope after reading the content note that this might be a book that carefully explored the complex real-life experience of a fellow neurodivergent person. It was painful to be reminded, yet again, of why I keep having conversations with other autistic people about how telling people you’re autistic probably won’t actually help you (and will most likely hurt you) because people only know the stereotypes and will hold you to them.
I want to give Sebastian the benefit of the doubt here, but after reading so many books that make “quirky” autistic characters feel like a trend, it’s hard. It’s not that there’s no room in fiction for these stereotypical traits, but they have to be written with intention, and I think writers owe it to their neurodivergent readers to make their intentions clear. Slapping a vague “neurodivergent” label on a book with no further explanation and no discussion in the acknowledgements of any research or sources just isn’t cutting it for me anymore, because too many authors have written poor neurodivergent representation to get diversity points and refused to take any accountability for it. It really isn’t hard to tell when people are writing from real-life experience and when they aren’t—and when they’re writing for their neurodivergent audience vs their neurotypical one. Sebastian just didn’t do enough in this book to earn my trust as an autistic reader.
I wish neurodivergent representation in romance was opening people’s eyes to the incredibly diverse experiences in the neurodivergent community. Unfortunately, there’s still a very long way to go.
November 1, 2022
5 stars
If you haven't noticed by now, I am a big Cat Sebastian fan. She just gets me, ok? Especially the Cabot books that she describes as "vibes" and "people crying while wearing sweaters" and "generationally queer" which Tommy calls them in this exact book. Which is exactly right.
What I loved most about this book is how much space Daniel and Alex make for each other. The story starts with them already as friends and together in every sense besides fucking so there is immediately domestic slowburn vibes which continue the entire time. Alex is an immigrant, a doctor, and neurodivergent, all of which are treated with care in the writing. Daniel is from a wealthy family but is still a cinnamon roll and a dirtbag who starts a community garden on a city-owned abandoned lot. The book is a story of these two finding their way as independent people, as a couple, and as a community.
This part is probably only interesting to me but there is also a tiny bit of government bureaucracy and urban planning as a treat. How a book based on vibes snuck in details on back taxes, insurance fraud, the City taking property, and apartment conversions to co-ops is a credit to how masterful Cat is with her writing.
In conclusion, Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots is a lovely addition to the Cabots series. If you want a mostly vibes domestic slowburn with sweater clad crying boys this is the book for you!
I received an ARC copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
If you haven't noticed by now, I am a big Cat Sebastian fan. She just gets me, ok? Especially the Cabot books that she describes as "vibes" and "people crying while wearing sweaters" and "generationally queer" which Tommy calls them in this exact book. Which is exactly right.
What I loved most about this book is how much space Daniel and Alex make for each other. The story starts with them already as friends and together in every sense besides fucking so there is immediately domestic slowburn vibes which continue the entire time. Alex is an immigrant, a doctor, and neurodivergent, all of which are treated with care in the writing. Daniel is from a wealthy family but is still a cinnamon roll and a dirtbag who starts a community garden on a city-owned abandoned lot. The book is a story of these two finding their way as independent people, as a couple, and as a community.
This part is probably only interesting to me but there is also a tiny bit of government bureaucracy and urban planning as a treat. How a book based on vibes snuck in details on back taxes, insurance fraud, the City taking property, and apartment conversions to co-ops is a credit to how masterful Cat is with her writing.
In conclusion, Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots is a lovely addition to the Cabots series. If you want a mostly vibes domestic slowburn with sweater clad crying boys this is the book for you!
I received an ARC copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
April 24, 2023
Who needs a plot when you can write an extended meditation on the difference between being friends and being lovers? This is not a complaint: I love my plotty K.J. Charles and Gregory Ashe (and Cat Sebastian in a plotty mood), but not everything has to have fireworks and surprise twists.
It might be wrong, in fact, to say that Sebastian's Cabot series is short on plot -- just, the plots are all in what happens within and between the characters. Daniel Cabot's in love with his best friend (huh, I don't even have a "friends to lovers" tag, which says something about how invested I am in that as a premise: not at all), Alex Savchenko, who's also in love with him, and the story takes them from their first tentative friends-with-benefits-ha-ha-sure-you-are steps to what looks like a permanent commitment as lovers.
Interestingly, some aspects of each character that might, in another writer's hands, have played as obstacles instead work to the lovers' benefit: Alex doesn't do tact or polite lying, which means that when he speaks up Daniel can be 100% sure that he means what he says; Daniel is easygoing in the extreme, which means that he doesn't struggle to deal with Alex's need to structure his days more than most people need to, and to spend more time alone and quiet than most people need.
I wrote that last the way I did because in the afterword CS says Alex is autistic. (Which wouldn't have been recognized in 1973, when the book is set -- these were still the days of Bruno Bettelheim, autistic people all need to be institutionalized since they only make unintelligible noises and don't have feelings anyway, autism is caused by "refrigerator mothers," etc.) Is "neurodivergent" [thank you, @Bizzy] a better label? Does Alex need any label at all? Do I? I am ... quite a lot like Alex, actually, and have only very recently started wondering whether I'm, if not "on the spectrum," at least spectrum-adjacent, so any thoughts I have on the subject are very much newby thoughts. But does even as benign-sounding a label as "neurodivergent" serves to set people apart rather than to normalize them? (There's something to be said for that old upper-class British idea of "eccentricity.") The thing that's so lovely about Daniel is that he takes Alex as just a specific person who has particular needs, not as a type of anything; so in some ways it was disappointing to read that Alex is meant to be "autistic," which seemed to make him an instance of a type rather than just a person. [This may -- thanks, @Teal and thanks again, @Bizzy -- reflect my own discomfort with whether "neurodivergent" is attachable to me. Sometimes "queer" feels like all the label I want out of life.] And, I guess here comes the main part, I read him the way Daniel sees him; he felt real to me rather in the way I feel real to myself.
I have no idea whether any of that makes sense.
I lived in the same neighborhood as Daniel and Alex do, a little less than a decade later, in a top-floor apartment with a combination bathtub-shower in the kitchen and a shared toilet in the hall outside. I think the Italian restaurant where Daniel and his mother lunch cannot have been on the east side of Tompkins Square (as CS's sources remembered), which was ahhhhhhhhhh a wild ride in those days, but was perhaps the old-school Italian restaurant on First or Second Ave around 12th Street. It's long gone, either way, and I can't remember its name. Also: Veselka, not Vesalka, and Leshko's, with an apostrophe. (God, I loved Leshko's. The food was great, and I once went to the bathroom there only to find blood all over the walls, presumably because somebody blew a vein shooting up. I was battle-hardened back then, what with coming home to sex workers doing their job in the vestibule of my apartment building, and the crack vials crunching underfoot in the hallway. Nowadays I scream when I see a particularly large cockroach.)
It might be wrong, in fact, to say that Sebastian's Cabot series is short on plot -- just, the plots are all in what happens within and between the characters. Daniel Cabot's in love with his best friend (huh, I don't even have a "friends to lovers" tag, which says something about how invested I am in that as a premise: not at all), Alex Savchenko, who's also in love with him, and the story takes them from their first tentative friends-with-benefits-ha-ha-sure-you-are steps to what looks like a permanent commitment as lovers.
Interestingly, some aspects of each character that might, in another writer's hands, have played as obstacles instead work to the lovers' benefit: Alex doesn't do tact or polite lying, which means that when he speaks up Daniel can be 100% sure that he means what he says; Daniel is easygoing in the extreme, which means that he doesn't struggle to deal with Alex's need to structure his days more than most people need to, and to spend more time alone and quiet than most people need.
I wrote that last the way I did because in the afterword CS says Alex is autistic. (Which wouldn't have been recognized in 1973, when the book is set -- these were still the days of Bruno Bettelheim, autistic people all need to be institutionalized since they only make unintelligible noises and don't have feelings anyway, autism is caused by "refrigerator mothers," etc.) Is "neurodivergent" [thank you, @Bizzy] a better label? Does Alex need any label at all? Do I? I am ... quite a lot like Alex, actually, and have only very recently started wondering whether I'm, if not "on the spectrum," at least spectrum-adjacent, so any thoughts I have on the subject are very much newby thoughts. But does even as benign-sounding a label as "neurodivergent" serves to set people apart rather than to normalize them? (There's something to be said for that old upper-class British idea of "eccentricity.") The thing that's so lovely about Daniel is that he takes Alex as just a specific person who has particular needs, not as a type of anything; so in some ways it was disappointing to read that Alex is meant to be "autistic," which seemed to make him an instance of a type rather than just a person. [This may -- thanks, @Teal and thanks again, @Bizzy -- reflect my own discomfort with whether "neurodivergent" is attachable to me. Sometimes "queer" feels like all the label I want out of life.] And, I guess here comes the main part, I read him the way Daniel sees him; he felt real to me rather in the way I feel real to myself.
I have no idea whether any of that makes sense.
I lived in the same neighborhood as Daniel and Alex do, a little less than a decade later, in a top-floor apartment with a combination bathtub-shower in the kitchen and a shared toilet in the hall outside. I think the Italian restaurant where Daniel and his mother lunch cannot have been on the east side of Tompkins Square (as CS's sources remembered), which was ahhhhhhhhhh a wild ride in those days, but was perhaps the old-school Italian restaurant on First or Second Ave around 12th Street. It's long gone, either way, and I can't remember its name. Also: Veselka, not Vesalka, and Leshko's, with an apostrophe. (God, I loved Leshko's. The food was great, and I once went to the bathroom there only to find blood all over the walls, presumably because somebody blew a vein shooting up. I was battle-hardened back then, what with coming home to sex workers doing their job in the vestibule of my apartment building, and the crack vials crunching underfoot in the hallway. Nowadays I scream when I see a particularly large cockroach.)
December 14, 2024
I *LOVE* Cat Sebastian's Cabot books. They fill me with such genuine warmth and joy, and they make me so giddy. Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots is funny, heartfelt, and wonderful, just like the other books in the series, and it left me feeling so utterly delighted.
I adore a "best friends who everyone already thinks are together-to-lovers" book, and Daniel and Alex are just that! There's something so natural and easy about their friendship and relationship, and though they have to put in an effort to make it work, they just fit together perfectly.
Daniel Cabot is set a bit later than the previous two books - we're in 1973 in this one, but if you've read the first books, you'll be able to guess who makes a few appearances in this book.
Just, gah, this book is fantastic!! It has wonderful characters, fantatic relationship development, and excellent autism rep.
I highlighted A LOT during my read lol. Some of my fave quotes:
✨️"And then there was Alex—the fact of him, the way Daniel shaped his days around a space that Alex might sometimes occupy, the predictable rhythm of Alex’s routine the heartbeat of Daniel’s life. They weren’t a couple, but they were a pair, and Daniel couldn’t imagine dating someone when he had Alex."
✨️"His biceps were thick, his shoulders broad. Shoveling, he thought inanely. More men should shovel things."
✨️"I missed you like crazy." They had spoken on the phone, but it obviously wasn’t the same. "I’m so tired of talking to people who aren’t you."
✨️"Daniel Cabot didn’t believe in love at first sight. He refused to be the type of person who believed in love at first sight, and after all, he didn’t really love Alex from the moment they met or anything. It was maybe half an hour later, when Alex cut up his burger."
✨️"I don’t think we’re done talking,” Daniel said, calm but insistent.
“I’m done!” Alex opened the door, then held it open for Daniel, who mumbled “Thanks,” because apparently they were both incapable of fighting like normal people"
I adore a "best friends who everyone already thinks are together-to-lovers" book, and Daniel and Alex are just that! There's something so natural and easy about their friendship and relationship, and though they have to put in an effort to make it work, they just fit together perfectly.
Daniel Cabot is set a bit later than the previous two books - we're in 1973 in this one, but if you've read the first books, you'll be able to guess who makes a few appearances in this book.
Just, gah, this book is fantastic!! It has wonderful characters, fantatic relationship development, and excellent autism rep.
I highlighted A LOT during my read lol. Some of my fave quotes:
✨️"And then there was Alex—the fact of him, the way Daniel shaped his days around a space that Alex might sometimes occupy, the predictable rhythm of Alex’s routine the heartbeat of Daniel’s life. They weren’t a couple, but they were a pair, and Daniel couldn’t imagine dating someone when he had Alex."
✨️"His biceps were thick, his shoulders broad. Shoveling, he thought inanely. More men should shovel things."
✨️"I missed you like crazy." They had spoken on the phone, but it obviously wasn’t the same. "I’m so tired of talking to people who aren’t you."
✨️"Daniel Cabot didn’t believe in love at first sight. He refused to be the type of person who believed in love at first sight, and after all, he didn’t really love Alex from the moment they met or anything. It was maybe half an hour later, when Alex cut up his burger."
✨️"I don’t think we’re done talking,” Daniel said, calm but insistent.
“I’m done!” Alex opened the door, then held it open for Daniel, who mumbled “Thanks,” because apparently they were both incapable of fighting like normal people"
January 14, 2023
This entire series is just lovely. Here we are in East Village, NYC, in 1973. I love NYC. I love the 70s. This was right up my alley. I loved the entire Cabot family, including Daniel, and I adored Alex. I loved all the secondary characters. Mostly I loved the vibe. It’s a series that just vibes with a time period, and I was vibing right along.
Best friends who-are-everything but lovers, to best-friends-lovers-everything-life-partners. The relationship development was just perfect.
And the romance: 😂🥰
“Sometimes when you aren’t there, I’m annoyed about it.”
Why 4 stars? Not much happens overall, which is not a bad thing, but I’m not sure the last part was necessary for my enjoyment of the story. I would have wrapped it up earlier. Although the ending was pretty much perfect.
Best friends who-are-everything but lovers, to best-friends-lovers-everything-life-partners. The relationship development was just perfect.
And the romance: 😂🥰
“Sometimes when you aren’t there, I’m annoyed about it.”
Why 4 stars? Not much happens overall, which is not a bad thing, but I’m not sure the last part was necessary for my enjoyment of the story. I would have wrapped it up earlier. Although the ending was pretty much perfect.
November 23, 2022
I am not sure why I read this right now - the incredible siren allure of the new releases? But I liked the 70s of the cover, loved the blurb and setting (1973 New York), found some of her books very comfort-read, tried a bit and here we go, almost in one sitting (it is 60k words, and a very zippy read).
It is almost plotless romance (more on that later) and that was absolutely fine with me and I am coming to realize that might be fine with me in general, for romances at least. On the (very good) acknowledgements note the author dedicates the book "I have to thank the readers who’ve enjoyed the Cabot series. I’m so glad there’s an audience for books about people who don’t do much of anything except wear sweaters (or, in this case, band t-shirts) and cry.", ok, I am apparently that demographic (and she included plenty about guerilla gardening and city living and food and a dog). So, I am perfectly fine reading romances where nothing much happens except talking about feelings and so on. (And OMG I map-googled the locations, and those kind of gardens survived, lots still there! I am incredibly thrilled at that...)
So, mm romance, starts in media res, between an non neurotypical doctor and an aimless music writer in a tough NY neighbourhood in 1973 (oh the real estate prices... ). The reason I am not giving it the full 5 stars, when I enjoyed it so much (or maybe I am just stupidly tough on rating romances?) is that while the friendship is explained, we do not feel it happening (nor do we see on the page another friendship I would like to see more of, the one between Alex and Daniel's mother).
Incidentally, a lot more sex-scenes than in the Hither, Page series (which I also loved), which might be great for some readers, but not for others. Me, I wanted to see Alex and Pat together in action, shopping, because I would need to see it to believe it! Also more establishing friendship background would have been welcome.
It was very much my cup of tea, though I think it is in a category where mileage varies lots (depending if one wants stuff like PLOT and action in romances and stuff like that).
Author also wrote "This book was supposed to be a novella of twenty-five thousand words. Four weeks later it was this", she should do it again, it worked for me.
It is almost plotless romance (more on that later) and that was absolutely fine with me and I am coming to realize that might be fine with me in general, for romances at least. On the (very good) acknowledgements note the author dedicates the book "I have to thank the readers who’ve enjoyed the Cabot series. I’m so glad there’s an audience for books about people who don’t do much of anything except wear sweaters (or, in this case, band t-shirts) and cry.", ok, I am apparently that demographic (and she included plenty about guerilla gardening and city living and food and a dog). So, I am perfectly fine reading romances where nothing much happens except talking about feelings and so on. (And OMG I map-googled the locations, and those kind of gardens survived, lots still there! I am incredibly thrilled at that...)
So, mm romance, starts in media res, between an non neurotypical doctor and an aimless music writer in a tough NY neighbourhood in 1973 (oh the real estate prices... ). The reason I am not giving it the full 5 stars, when I enjoyed it so much (or maybe I am just stupidly tough on rating romances?) is that while the friendship is explained, we do not feel it happening (nor do we see on the page another friendship I would like to see more of, the one between Alex and Daniel's mother).
Incidentally, a lot more sex-scenes than in the Hither, Page series (which I also loved), which might be great for some readers, but not for others. Me, I wanted to see Alex and Pat together in action, shopping, because I would need to see it to believe it! Also more establishing friendship background would have been welcome.
It was very much my cup of tea, though I think it is in a category where mileage varies lots (depending if one wants stuff like PLOT and action in romances and stuff like that).
Author also wrote "This book was supposed to be a novella of twenty-five thousand words. Four weeks later it was this", she should do it again, it worked for me.
October 20, 2022
All of Cat Sebastian's Cabot books so far have been warm and gentle and very low-key in terms of plot, and this one takes that tendency even further than the earlier books in the series (of standalone stories). It's divided into two parts, and only the first half includes any driving sense of plot and structural movement, as two men who've been the closest of friends for ages finally realize that they're BOTH in love with each other and they can actually do something about that. It's a lovely, gentle story, and I enjoyed every moment of it. As always with Sebastian, the characters are wonderful (not just the protagonists but also their whole communities full of fascinating, charming characters and relationships), and the early 1970s New York City setting is incredibly vivid and beautifully written.
The second half of the book (labeled Part II) presents a series of episodes from Alex and Daniel's gradually developing, happy life together, along with their family and friends, and I think this is the half of the book that will get very different reactions from different readers. It is all beautifully written, and it's lovely to see them leading a happy life with the people they care most about, growing and changing together. On the other hand, speaking only for myself as a subjective reader, I personally missed the sense of a directed *story* that the first half had held for me, and I ended up skim-reading or just skipping most of the sex scenes in this half, because there were quite a few of them (well past my personal steam preferences), and I definitely didn't feel like I *had* to read any of them in order to understand the dynamics of their (very, very slowly and subtly) evolving relationship.
So, for me, personally, the first half of this book was a fabulous 5 stars and the second half was 3 stars...but I'm also entirely certain that there will be other readers who will perk up with delight at the idea of an entirely stress-free second half that includes more sex than plot - because I know that really is catnip for a lot of readers! It just wasn't for me, personally.
...But I was still glad to have read this warm and hopeful book, overall, and I'm still hoping very hard that Pat Cabot (Daniel's mother) will get a story of her own at some point! I absolutely love her as a character.
The second half of the book (labeled Part II) presents a series of episodes from Alex and Daniel's gradually developing, happy life together, along with their family and friends, and I think this is the half of the book that will get very different reactions from different readers. It is all beautifully written, and it's lovely to see them leading a happy life with the people they care most about, growing and changing together. On the other hand, speaking only for myself as a subjective reader, I personally missed the sense of a directed *story* that the first half had held for me, and I ended up skim-reading or just skipping most of the sex scenes in this half, because there were quite a few of them (well past my personal steam preferences), and I definitely didn't feel like I *had* to read any of them in order to understand the dynamics of their (very, very slowly and subtly) evolving relationship.
So, for me, personally, the first half of this book was a fabulous 5 stars and the second half was 3 stars...but I'm also entirely certain that there will be other readers who will perk up with delight at the idea of an entirely stress-free second half that includes more sex than plot - because I know that really is catnip for a lot of readers! It just wasn't for me, personally.
...But I was still glad to have read this warm and hopeful book, overall, and I'm still hoping very hard that Pat Cabot (Daniel's mother) will get a story of her own at some point! I absolutely love her as a character.
April 10, 2025
Cabots are lovely.
They shed their shiny coats, but
innate warmth remains.
They shed their shiny coats, but
innate warmth remains.
March 25, 2024
There's something about this series. Nothing much happends but I can't stop reading. And they kind of make me feel good. Loved it 💙
August 26, 2024
Anything that Cat Sebastian writes it’s perfect
"We're already together in every way, and if there's some other way you can think of, if there's something else you need, we can do that too"
Alex is very set in his own ways and he knows that, in fact, he is very proud of that, and Daniel is very much not, he is more of a free soul but somehow they make it work beautifully, they are one of those couples that complement each other.
This is friends to lovers but oh boy! It takes a while for them to realize that they have practically been dating since forever and when they do it's amazing to see them decide to be happy together.
It's low angst, swoony, and has a beautiful HEA as all Cat Sebastian's books.
"We're already together in every way, and if there's some other way you can think of, if there's something else you need, we can do that too"
Alex is very set in his own ways and he knows that, in fact, he is very proud of that, and Daniel is very much not, he is more of a free soul but somehow they make it work beautifully, they are one of those couples that complement each other.
This is friends to lovers but oh boy! It takes a while for them to realize that they have practically been dating since forever and when they do it's amazing to see them decide to be happy together.
It's low angst, swoony, and has a beautiful HEA as all Cat Sebastian's books.
August 19, 2023
This book is the third in the series about several Cabot family members - Daniel is Tommy Cabot’s son - and it’s set in the early seventies. Daniel lives in New York, estranged from the Cabot family, except for his parents and his eccentric, dreadful grandmother, whom he visits every now and then.
He doesn’t really know what to do with his life, what is the purpose of his life in general. He does cherish his friendship with Alex, an immigrant doctor from the Ukraine, for whom he develops deeper feelings. And he does enjoy turning vacant lots into greenery’s.
For me, there was a lot to love about this book. Daniel is a music journalist as well, though it’s a free lance job. I loved that part of the story, though it’s not huge. I also love New York and I love the 70’s and the vibe of that era, and it’s s so well captured by Cat Sebastian. But that’s something I’m getting to expect from her books. Whether she writes about a regency period, the fifties or the sixties, she always manages to get the feeling of the era perfectly.
Another thing I absolutely loved was how she created Alex’s character. Without diagnoses available at that time, it is clear he is neurodivergent (which she states too) and that he is on the autism spectrum. As a person who has had this diagnosis myself, I felt very seen.
So okay, in one of the reviews I read that the reviewer felt like Alex was written as a very typical autistic person, with very stereotypical traits, surrounded by stereotypical characters who accept his ‘weirdness’ and ‘social awkwardness’ where other people probably just find him weird and eccentric. And sure, everyone is allowed their own meaning, I respect that. But I feel like I HAVE to disagree. I FELT SEEN! So many of Alex’s traits were ones I recognised, so many of his reactions and much of his behaviour felt so awfully familiar that it sometimes even made me emotional. I even told my husband about how I was reading a book with an mc that made me feel validated. And yes, I get that many authors who write autistic characters seem to have some sort of list with autistic traits at hand and use them as their mc’s character traits. But what Cat Sebastian did, was write a character that felt real, a character who acted in certain ways without continuously making clear how different he acted because of his autism. I don’t know if I’m explaining this right, but what I mean is that it felt natural. This is who Alex is, without a diagnosis, because that wasn’t available yet, but this is him, Alex. A person who finds it difficult to live in a neurotypical world. A person who needs to be on his own for a while when he has been overstimulated and feels guilty about it towards his friend. A person who tries to avoid places with too many people because it’s too exhausting and he can’t deal with them. I never felt more represented in a book. And that is why this book has to be on my all time favorites shelf.
But enough about that, even though it’s an important part of this story. There’s not much angst here, just a slow developing love story between two best friends. I loved how they grew in that friendship, how they both gave each other space when they needed it. How they understood what the other needed. I was rooting so hard for Alex and Daniel and I loved the way Cat Sebastian wrote their happy ever after. It suited them perfectly.
He doesn’t really know what to do with his life, what is the purpose of his life in general. He does cherish his friendship with Alex, an immigrant doctor from the Ukraine, for whom he develops deeper feelings. And he does enjoy turning vacant lots into greenery’s.
For me, there was a lot to love about this book. Daniel is a music journalist as well, though it’s a free lance job. I loved that part of the story, though it’s not huge. I also love New York and I love the 70’s and the vibe of that era, and it’s s so well captured by Cat Sebastian. But that’s something I’m getting to expect from her books. Whether she writes about a regency period, the fifties or the sixties, she always manages to get the feeling of the era perfectly.
Another thing I absolutely loved was how she created Alex’s character. Without diagnoses available at that time, it is clear he is neurodivergent (which she states too) and that he is on the autism spectrum. As a person who has had this diagnosis myself, I felt very seen.
So okay, in one of the reviews I read that the reviewer felt like Alex was written as a very typical autistic person, with very stereotypical traits, surrounded by stereotypical characters who accept his ‘weirdness’ and ‘social awkwardness’ where other people probably just find him weird and eccentric. And sure, everyone is allowed their own meaning, I respect that. But I feel like I HAVE to disagree. I FELT SEEN! So many of Alex’s traits were ones I recognised, so many of his reactions and much of his behaviour felt so awfully familiar that it sometimes even made me emotional. I even told my husband about how I was reading a book with an mc that made me feel validated. And yes, I get that many authors who write autistic characters seem to have some sort of list with autistic traits at hand and use them as their mc’s character traits. But what Cat Sebastian did, was write a character that felt real, a character who acted in certain ways without continuously making clear how different he acted because of his autism. I don’t know if I’m explaining this right, but what I mean is that it felt natural. This is who Alex is, without a diagnosis, because that wasn’t available yet, but this is him, Alex. A person who finds it difficult to live in a neurotypical world. A person who needs to be on his own for a while when he has been overstimulated and feels guilty about it towards his friend. A person who tries to avoid places with too many people because it’s too exhausting and he can’t deal with them. I never felt more represented in a book. And that is why this book has to be on my all time favorites shelf.
But enough about that, even though it’s an important part of this story. There’s not much angst here, just a slow developing love story between two best friends. I loved how they grew in that friendship, how they both gave each other space when they needed it. How they understood what the other needed. I was rooting so hard for Alex and Daniel and I loved the way Cat Sebastian wrote their happy ever after. It suited them perfectly.
November 6, 2022
There are many times when fluff is what I'm after in a book. But when the world seems truly terrible, which happens with increasing frequency these days, I sometimes want something beyond cotton candy lightness. I want a book that offers refuge in the reminder that while people are so often the worst, the countless everyday, small ways we care for one another are the magic of being alive. This book does that, and more, and I loved it so much that it's hard to write a review for it. I'm just so glad books like this exist. It's in my top five books of the year and tied with Peter Cabot's book as my favorite Cat Sebastian. The amount of passages I highlighted is truly embarrassing. I'm going to be insufferably recommending it to everyone who requests comfort reads for the foreseeable future because it's a book that knows exactly what it's doing and does it to perfection. A book you can turn to on the hardest days. All the stars. Highly recommend.
July 3, 2023
Read #2, June-July 2023: Upping my rating to five stars! This book is the perfect friends-to-lovers and feels like a warm hug.
Read #1, December 2022: This series provides the best comfort reads and I hope Cat Sebastian never stops writing them!
Read #1, December 2022: This series provides the best comfort reads and I hope Cat Sebastian never stops writing them!
August 4, 2025
cuteeeee but prob my least favourite in this series 🙈
January 3, 2023
3.5 rounded up
I thought this was a really lovely read, featuring a minor character from the first book in this series falling for a neuro-divergent immigrant doctor in NYC. The build was lovely and the book was relatively low-angst, though still compelling. While I very much enjoyed the second half of the book, I'm not entirely certain it was necessary--it read like one long, extended epilogue, as there are no real new challenge faced/overcome and structurally it felt really unnecessary, though I did enjoy getting to see more of them for the most part. The time period, NYC in the 70s, isn't one I've read much of in romance, so that was a fun aspect, and the writing was really solid overall.
I appreciated the neurodivergent rep, though I share some concerns about the overall representation in romance of what is often clearly meant to be Autism, but is never clearly named, nor portrayed in any deep, meaningful way that would force the characters and readers to truly grapple with some of the less easily accommodated manifestations of Autism. I do give a bit more grace in this specific book, largely because this is meant to be a historical read, and I do think it becomes a lot more complicated to handle those issues with the respect and nuance they deserve while also being historically accurate, and overall I do think the author was respectful and well intentioned. But as a trend, I do think it's important to be aware of the very shallow, repetitive, and in many ways sanitized portrayals of neurodivergence we're being given, and to call for more holistic and meaningful representation.
I thought this was a really lovely read, featuring a minor character from the first book in this series falling for a neuro-divergent immigrant doctor in NYC. The build was lovely and the book was relatively low-angst, though still compelling. While I very much enjoyed the second half of the book, I'm not entirely certain it was necessary--it read like one long, extended epilogue, as there are no real new challenge faced/overcome and structurally it felt really unnecessary, though I did enjoy getting to see more of them for the most part. The time period, NYC in the 70s, isn't one I've read much of in romance, so that was a fun aspect, and the writing was really solid overall.
I appreciated the neurodivergent rep, though I share some concerns about the overall representation in romance of what is often clearly meant to be Autism, but is never clearly named, nor portrayed in any deep, meaningful way that would force the characters and readers to truly grapple with some of the less easily accommodated manifestations of Autism. I do give a bit more grace in this specific book, largely because this is meant to be a historical read, and I do think it becomes a lot more complicated to handle those issues with the respect and nuance they deserve while also being historically accurate, and overall I do think the author was respectful and well intentioned. But as a trend, I do think it's important to be aware of the very shallow, repetitive, and in many ways sanitized portrayals of neurodivergence we're being given, and to call for more holistic and meaningful representation.
April 12, 2023
4.5 stars
This one hits me in all the right places - and probably the loveliest (and the most soothing) romance I've read this year so far. The story opens with Daniel and Alex already been co-dependent friends for almost two years. After a question from another friend, "How do you two meet?" (which only applies to couples), these two (idiots) in love start to mule over their relationship... and how they pretty much already a couple, without the physical act of sex.
What follows are WONDERFUL! I love it so much. I love seeing them thinking, asking, navigating, negotiating, about what will change (and what won't) in their lives, because it has been intertwined for the past two years anyway. I love that even though they do things together, Daniel and Alex also realize (and know) that they also need time for their own, with their own set of friends.
The only downside is that the story doesn't provide the beginning of their relationship. I mean, the first time they meet is written, but what happens in that two years, of how Daniel inserting himself in Alex's life, and such. I guess I want it all with these two 😄
This one hits me in all the right places - and probably the loveliest (and the most soothing) romance I've read this year so far. The story opens with Daniel and Alex already been co-dependent friends for almost two years. After a question from another friend, "How do you two meet?" (which only applies to couples), these two (idiots) in love start to mule over their relationship... and how they pretty much already a couple, without the physical act of sex.
What follows are WONDERFUL! I love it so much. I love seeing them thinking, asking, navigating, negotiating, about what will change (and what won't) in their lives, because it has been intertwined for the past two years anyway. I love that even though they do things together, Daniel and Alex also realize (and know) that they also need time for their own, with their own set of friends.
The only downside is that the story doesn't provide the beginning of their relationship. I mean, the first time they meet is written, but what happens in that two years, of how Daniel inserting himself in Alex's life, and such. I guess I want it all with these two 😄
Read
April 7, 2024Having read (or attempted to read) all three of these, I think the road trip structure of book #2 was the best context to balance the just-vibes tone and low-conflict romance arc that this series is characterized by. #1 and this one feel like they mostly consist of treading water - not necessarily a critique, I guess, but I reached a point with both books where I just thought “if it’s this low stakes, why am I even reading it at all?”
Compounded probably by the extreme trope similarities in all three books - sincere, wealthy, relatively built Cabot plus prickly, thin, relatively disadvantaged person. It’s just that when one book is the slightly but definitively better version, why read the other two?
I think the cross-country road trip in #2 also opened up the premise in way that just isn’t really the case for #1 and #3, both of which from what I read felt a little bit claustrophobic in their NY/CT/MA East Coast-ness.
(Last year I went to see the play The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window. At intermission I looked up the plot summary on Wikipedia to see if it would get better and then left when I saw it would not, having developed a sudden and frankly almost physical loathing associated with comfortable liberals in Manhattan in the 1960s. Like I hated those characters so much I couldn’t physically keep sitting there and listening to them talk. I’m not saying this book is that, at all… but it is the tiniest sliver of that and frankly my PTSD from having to watch even half of that play is triggered by reading about Daniel and his stupid community garden. Sorry, I hate it!)
(Now that my bias has been disclosed…)
DNF @ 29%.
Compounded probably by the extreme trope similarities in all three books - sincere, wealthy, relatively built Cabot plus prickly, thin, relatively disadvantaged person. It’s just that when one book is the slightly but definitively better version, why read the other two?
I think the cross-country road trip in #2 also opened up the premise in way that just isn’t really the case for #1 and #3, both of which from what I read felt a little bit claustrophobic in their NY/CT/MA East Coast-ness.
(Last year I went to see the play The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window. At intermission I looked up the plot summary on Wikipedia to see if it would get better and then left when I saw it would not, having developed a sudden and frankly almost physical loathing associated with comfortable liberals in Manhattan in the 1960s. Like I hated those characters so much I couldn’t physically keep sitting there and listening to them talk. I’m not saying this book is that, at all… but it is the tiniest sliver of that and frankly my PTSD from having to watch even half of that play is triggered by reading about Daniel and his stupid community garden. Sorry, I hate it!)
(Now that my bias has been disclosed…)
DNF @ 29%.
April 30, 2023
Thank you Calen for the recommendation. I really needed to read a story like this right now. It was lovely! I loved the main characters and was rooting for them. The supporting characters were really well written too.
There wasn’t a lot of conflict which worked in this particular stories favor. The story was more about personal growth and a relationship that made me smile. That was a nice change of pace.
There wasn’t a lot of conflict which worked in this particular stories favor. The story was more about personal growth and a relationship that made me smile. That was a nice change of pace.
November 22, 2022
okay i ADORED this!! which is wild bc i’m not necessarily an Established Relationship bitch, and this is basically 200 pages of friends-to-lovers “ohhh actually we were dating this whole time” relationship negotiation. it’s about opening up your life to love!!! and it’s about doing so while growing out your hair & wearing ripped band shirts & snuggling in your warm cozy brokendown apartment 🥺 also: driving to massachusetts, housing policy in the 70s, community gardens, eating soup in the dead of summer.
i found the pacing really surprising and delightful — she tells what felt to me like a fully contained story in the first half and then just. keeps going! for like 100 more pages! like, in the same way fic writers will keep writing postscripts for years after the proper story, just for the joy of spending more time with the characters. cat sebastian is my favorite fic writer alive. ali hazelwood wishes.
i found the pacing really surprising and delightful — she tells what felt to me like a fully contained story in the first half and then just. keeps going! for like 100 more pages! like, in the same way fic writers will keep writing postscripts for years after the proper story, just for the joy of spending more time with the characters. cat sebastian is my favorite fic writer alive. ali hazelwood wishes.
September 19, 2023
4.5 stars. Quietly, and without me even realizing it, Cat Sebastian has become one of my favourite authors. She just writes so well. Her work is nuanced and compassionate, and her characters are so great. This book felt really intimate; it was an almost voyeuristic look into the lives and relationship of Daniel and Alex. No plot to speak of, just two very different men falling in love in 1970s New York.
Sweet baby Daniel is an absolute cinnamon roll, he seems kind of aimless and a bit lost, but really is just very easygoing. He meets Alex one night after getting into a fight and needing patching up - Alex is a doctor, and they somehow become friends. Alex is written as neurodivergent, he has trouble deciphering what people mean and he hates change, he understands that he is difficult and has never really imagined having a romantic partner in the traditional sense because of this. But Daniel finds his way into Alex's life and things change. It's a slow-burn kind of romance in that they spend almost every day together, but it takes them a long time to realize that they actually belong together.
The strongest aspect of the writing for me in this book was the characterization. So many times in MM romance, I struggle to tell the MCs apart, but Sebastian has given us two distinct and different men that fit together so well. I've already mentioned how lovely Daniel is, but actually, the character that really got me was Alex. I feel like I know him, I feel like I am him. He's blunt and irritable and a little selfish at first, but he loves his work and he loves Daniel, but he doesn't know how to articulate this.
It's also a very sexy book, but at the same time the sex scenes felt realistic and were more a depiction of two people who love each other being intimate than outright erotica. I loved it, I wish all sex scenes were written like this.
The pacing felt a bit slow at times, and it was maybe a little long for how little happened, but ultimately it was a great book.
Sweet baby Daniel is an absolute cinnamon roll, he seems kind of aimless and a bit lost, but really is just very easygoing. He meets Alex one night after getting into a fight and needing patching up - Alex is a doctor, and they somehow become friends. Alex is written as neurodivergent, he has trouble deciphering what people mean and he hates change, he understands that he is difficult and has never really imagined having a romantic partner in the traditional sense because of this. But Daniel finds his way into Alex's life and things change. It's a slow-burn kind of romance in that they spend almost every day together, but it takes them a long time to realize that they actually belong together.
The strongest aspect of the writing for me in this book was the characterization. So many times in MM romance, I struggle to tell the MCs apart, but Sebastian has given us two distinct and different men that fit together so well. I've already mentioned how lovely Daniel is, but actually, the character that really got me was Alex. I feel like I know him, I feel like I am him. He's blunt and irritable and a little selfish at first, but he loves his work and he loves Daniel, but he doesn't know how to articulate this.
It's also a very sexy book, but at the same time the sex scenes felt realistic and were more a depiction of two people who love each other being intimate than outright erotica. I loved it, I wish all sex scenes were written like this.
The pacing felt a bit slow at times, and it was maybe a little long for how little happened, but ultimately it was a great book.
March 18, 2023
Another insight into the world of the Cabot family and whilst my least favourite it's still a lovely read.
I was hugely freaked out by the fact that there were weird coincidences throughout the book and also my life (I'm Daniel, my partner is Alex, he's also a Dr, and he also gives you "that look")
I loved the city in this book, in a way it was a character in its own right, its development pushing Alex and Daniel together more and blossoming just
A lovely series and I hope there is more!
I was hugely freaked out by the fact that there were weird coincidences throughout the book and also my life (I'm Daniel, my partner is Alex, he's also a Dr, and he also gives you "that look")
I loved the city in this book, in a way it was a character in its own right, its development pushing Alex and Daniel together more and blossoming just
A lovely series and I hope there is more!
May 20, 2024
Oh this was def my favorite of the Cabot series, which is saying a lot because I loved them all. But there’s something so special about Daniel and Alex’s story 🥹 I need a sequel where they’re old and gray and happy af
March 15, 2025
help this was so cute
Read
July 24, 2023This series has been so soothing to my brain. Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots, in particular, is all vibes, no plot. And the vibes are good, fam; they're really, really good. It's left me feeling calm, soothed as I can be only by an autistic character wearing a sweater vest to a loud music club because he must urgently make an ill-timed declaration of his intentions.
The broad strokes of the plot, such that it is, are: rich boy returns from war-adjacent military service to heal in a rundown tenement, meets a doctor who came to New York as a refugee, and they become close friends. Daniel spends most of his time building a garden where once a building stood. Alex spends most of his time at a clinic, healing the sick with a friend he's known since high school. While Daniel is a growing metaphorical garden from concrete and alley trash, his best friend Alex explores the rapidity of change as it relates to the rigidity of his mind. Daniel has sex with his friends and wants to have sex with Alex, whose desires line up quite nicely. Their sexual relationship is no more romantic than their platonic one.
They've been close for years now, bordering on couple-dom. Couple-hood? But are you really best friends unless everyone thinks you're dating? Mayhaps not. I jest, of course, because of the common jokes about queer people not realizing that they're dating and/or queer until they've been on several dates with someone.
I jest also to point out what this book does better than most I've read: say repeatedly that romance is not the next step in friendship, something separate. Romance is not something More.
This book is about all the kinds of love we have in our lives and the equivalence among them. Daniel has a biological family and an extended network of friends; Alex has Mary and Mary's family along with his own biological family. The side characters' effects on the MC's lives are never minimized. It's clear that Daniel and Alex love their friends as they love each other. The only difference drawn between how Daniel views Alex and how he views his family is the relationship with grandmother, a woman whose recreational cruelty is optional and unsporting. He maintains this relationship out of spite, and it's fucking fantastic.
The book is divided into two parts that on the surface seem to be "getting together" and "being together," but the charm of this book for me is not only that we get to see them being together in part two, but that we get to see them being together in part one. Because, I harp on, romance is not More than friendship.
They were together the whole time.
P.S.
This book makes me want to romanticize my life and my friendships because fuck it. What have we got to lose besides some barren concrete to a lush garden?
P.P.S. Alex made me laugh so much, his POV perfectly alexithymic imo.
The broad strokes of the plot, such that it is, are: rich boy returns from war-adjacent military service to heal in a rundown tenement, meets a doctor who came to New York as a refugee, and they become close friends. Daniel spends most of his time building a garden where once a building stood. Alex spends most of his time at a clinic, healing the sick with a friend he's known since high school. While Daniel is a growing metaphorical garden from concrete and alley trash, his best friend Alex explores the rapidity of change as it relates to the rigidity of his mind. Daniel has sex with his friends and wants to have sex with Alex, whose desires line up quite nicely. Their sexual relationship is no more romantic than their platonic one.
They've been close for years now, bordering on couple-dom. Couple-hood? But are you really best friends unless everyone thinks you're dating? Mayhaps not. I jest, of course, because of the common jokes about queer people not realizing that they're dating and/or queer until they've been on several dates with someone.
I jest also to point out what this book does better than most I've read: say repeatedly that romance is not the next step in friendship, something separate. Romance is not something More.
This book is about all the kinds of love we have in our lives and the equivalence among them. Daniel has a biological family and an extended network of friends; Alex has Mary and Mary's family along with his own biological family. The side characters' effects on the MC's lives are never minimized. It's clear that Daniel and Alex love their friends as they love each other. The only difference drawn between how Daniel views Alex and how he views his family is the relationship with grandmother, a woman whose recreational cruelty is optional and unsporting. He maintains this relationship out of spite, and it's fucking fantastic.
Daniel Cabot didn’t believe in love at first sight. He refused to be the type of person who believed in love at first sight, and after all, he didn’t really love Alex from the moment they met or anything. It was maybe half an hour later, when Alex cut up his burger. And it probably wasn’t even love, anyway, just some other kind of overwhelming fondness coupled with a conviction that he had to keep Alex in his life.I'm obsessed with how Sebastian writes "anything else" here instead of "anything more":
But Daniel was a friend, a real friend, something so rare and good that there was no use thinking about anything else he could have been. And so Alex very nearly didn’t.It's a mere accident of an offhand comment that spurred this entire romance, and I adore the thought that their relationship would have been just as loving, just as kind, just as reciprocal without Mary's husband innocently asking "How did you two meet?" as opposed to "How do you know each other?"
The book is divided into two parts that on the surface seem to be "getting together" and "being together," but the charm of this book for me is not only that we get to see them being together in part two, but that we get to see them being together in part one. Because, I harp on, romance is not More than friendship.
They were together the whole time.
P.S.
This book makes me want to romanticize my life and my friendships because fuck it. What have we got to lose besides some barren concrete to a lush garden?
P.P.S. Alex made me laugh so much, his POV perfectly alexithymic imo.
He tripped over the next words, because you are precious to me was a deranged thing to say and the idea of you hurting yourself makes me want to throw you off a bridge wasn’t much better.
Maybe there was something to be said for laying out all your secrets and making people choose between accepting you and getting out of your life. The idea made Alex feel acutely ill.
Alex hoped Daniel appreciated exactly how bold and daring he was being in going to the grocery store on Tuesday rather than Saturday. It was like fucking Mardi Gras over here, everything upside down.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 25, 2023
Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots, like all the Cabot books, is a low-stakes romance where there isn't much conflict, just two people falling in love, or as in the case of this book, recognizing that they are already in love and coming to terms with it. No third-act breakups, no outside forces coming between them; even homophobia isn't really an issue here.
Our MCs are Daniel, son of the MC from the first in the series, and Alex, Ukrainian immigrant, doctor, neurodivergent, and Daniel's best friend. Best friends for years when the book opens, the "plot" is just them slowly coming to acknowledge that their relationship means more to them than just friendship, and then acting on it. It wasn't a can't put this down book by any means, but a cozy read to make you feel the cozy feelings.
The biggest conflict in here is that they have a small argument about Daniel insisting on going to visit his mean grandmother by himself, and Alex insisting on coming with him, but the way that conflict is resolved is very cute so I feel like it doesn't even count.
The smut in here is excellent, by the way. Also, it made me want to start gardening, even though I am a Plant Killer, and I spent an inexplicable length of time googling shower kitchens.
I'm not sure if she will write more books in this world, as she may have run out of Cabots, but I will read them if she does!
Our MCs are Daniel, son of the MC from the first in the series, and Alex, Ukrainian immigrant, doctor, neurodivergent, and Daniel's best friend. Best friends for years when the book opens, the "plot" is just them slowly coming to acknowledge that their relationship means more to them than just friendship, and then acting on it. It wasn't a can't put this down book by any means, but a cozy read to make you feel the cozy feelings.
The biggest conflict in here is that they have a small argument about Daniel insisting on going to visit his mean grandmother by himself, and Alex insisting on coming with him, but the way that conflict is resolved is very cute so I feel like it doesn't even count.
The smut in here is excellent, by the way. Also, it made me want to start gardening, even though I am a Plant Killer, and I spent an inexplicable length of time googling shower kitchens.
I'm not sure if she will write more books in this world, as she may have run out of Cabots, but I will read them if she does!
December 8, 2022
This whole series is like catnip to me.
I spent the whole time reading this with either a dazed smile and/or my eyebrows lightly furrowed in awwww.
Cat Sebastian doing what she does best - all vibes, no plot, deep-down good characters, adorable but oblivious tenderness, historically accurate trivia, peppered with anti-capitalism and realistic depictions of anxiety-like stuff.
Plus we get bits of Tommy and Everett and Pat? What more could I ask for?
I spent the whole time reading this with either a dazed smile and/or my eyebrows lightly furrowed in awwww.
Cat Sebastian doing what she does best - all vibes, no plot, deep-down good characters, adorable but oblivious tenderness, historically accurate trivia, peppered with anti-capitalism and realistic depictions of anxiety-like stuff.
Plus we get bits of Tommy and Everett and Pat? What more could I ask for?
July 7, 2023
I enjoyed this most by far of the three books. It kept me
hooked and I loved the characters.
hooked and I loved the characters.
March 2, 2025
I just wanna live in a book written by Cat Sebastian, is that too much to ask? 😭🥺
February 5, 2025
cat sebastian writing a character with long hair who wears ripped jeans and black t-shirts and loves music i took that personally
November 27, 2025
This was such a nice read, comfort reading at its best ...
There's very little plot in this novel, but I could probably read about Daniel and Alex for another 50 chapters more. Recommended by T :)
There's very little plot in this novel, but I could probably read about Daniel and Alex for another 50 chapters more. Recommended by T :)
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