Zuum’s Reviews > This Ain't No Gay Romance > Status Update

Pt5 and MCs are generally very nonjudgmental. Her books don’t immediately take the stance that risky behaviors are a cry for help that the character needs to reform and recover from, Coping mechanisms are viewed through a pretty neutral lense and you don’t feel as if they’re being either glorified, worshipped, or dismissed.

Pt3 Tastefully and realistically done. Sometimes terrible things have happened to her characters, and those things affect their lives, and they deal with the fall out and try to move forward, that’s it. They develop the characters without making it into a play on anyone’s emotions. You’re left to feel how you’re going to feel about it.

Pt2 I also genuinely love how Avice handles both character trauma, and subjects generally considered to be edgy or taboo like substance use and weird sex. Trauma is treated as if it’s just a part of these characters lives. She neither trauma dumps all over you, or drops cryptic clues the whole time in order to turn it into some melodramatic reveal to elicit sympathy from either the reader or another character

Every time I read a book by this author, I’m surprised how good it is. Not that I’m expecting them to be bad, but they’re just *so* good. She does a fantastic slow build and you really feel the characters getting to know each other. Tons of dialogue between characters. All kinds of interactions, not only the ones that are immediately relevant to the plot.