Starfish by Lisa Becker

I can't remember who initially recommended this to me, which is probably for the best because they really enjoyed it, and I'm about to disappoint them 🤣⠀
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Starfish by Lisa Becker had a lot of great things going for it. I liked the storyline and the characters. I liked seeing an adult child navigating life estranged from a parent. I liked the dynamics of following a crazy-but-you-love-them, friends-who-become-family group. The will they/won't they felt true to life and not overly wrought. I liked the way the romance developed between them. I just couldn't stand the way it was written! The way the characters talked about themselves and other people was, more than once, so stilted or awkward that it actively took me out of the story and made me wonder why it hadn't been edited. It left me feeling kinda meh about what otherwise was a pretty good romance. If you've read this, I'd love to hear your thoughts! If you haven't, tell me this: what pulls you out of a story? Is it an word/phrase/trigger? Tell me all your reading pet peeves.