I implore you to violently ignore the synopsis below. It's so ... wholly inadequate to what this book holds, it honestly makes me want to scream a little bit.

All books that resonate with me do so because I can see myself in them, in some way. This is why I tend to be drawn to autistic characters – that small delight of Hey, I do that!, the delightful little gasp of representation.

But I probably go overboard, too? As anyone who interacts with me can attest, when I hit the "all is lost" dip of most modern romances, I will become broody and irritated. I inhabit the books I read, somewhat unhealthily so at times, and I find myself almost sad sometimes to come out of it when everything magically resolves itself.

Then I read something like The Three Lives of Cate Kay, and I walk around feeling like I have a javelin jutting out of my stomach - painful, to be sure, but also just constantly, irritatingly In the way of what I'm trying to do. Knocking over the bottle of water I want to drink (that would probably just burble out again anyway), a minor annoyance on top of a gaping, possibly mortal hole in my torso.

This book was infuriating! I employ no subtlety in my dislike of writers writing about writing, the "cheat code" because you know I love books because I'm reading a book. And yet! While I didn't find the excerpted passages of the book-within-the-book particularly inspriing, I for the first time found some compassion in it? Because the reason Cate Kay is an author is because of how she relates to books, how it feels to read them and the joy from writing.

Hell, by my own measure I'm cheating just by writing book reviews, because if you're reading this you probably like reading too, right?

This book is difficult. It is not a standard romance - barely romance at all, really. It's a love story, though, a beatiful, damaged, tragic and not inspiring but fucking wholesome love story. It's love as it's lived, rather than love as it's imagined on the page.

I'm not going to bother to try to recap the plot, as it's too intricate to try to contain concisely. It's written as a joint memoir, a Rashomon look at various pivotal sections of the author's life through the people who were involved. They're all fully human characters, by equal traits amazing and yet still as flawed as the rest of us. Each one felt like someone I could run into on the street or perhaps punch in the face, as the situation warranted.

I don't think you're going to react to this book the same way I did. But I think it might get you, maybe in a similar way or on a wholly different wavelength. And if it doesn't, I hope you find something that does. This is art at it's finest - communicating a feeling – no, broadcasting a feeling, that may resonate far beyond after the last page has been turned over.

There's a particular kind of narrative laziness that irks me. Not enough to hate the work entirely, but it .. disappoints? Me every single time.

One of the reasons I did not fall headfirst into Sherlock when it first exploded onto the cultural landscape was a bit of the same thing. The first episode (spoilers) involves trying to deduce what happens to a woman, and Holmes uses a number of clues not actually discernible through the camera in order to solve the mystery.

And that's ... fine? If your story is about the relationship between Watson and Holmes and Holmes trying to figure out how to interact with the world, the mystery matters less. But in the pilot episode, you probably have to not focus so intensely on the mystery if that's what you want me to take away from it?

(I'm getting there, I swear.)

I actually came into this book blind - didn't read the blurb, knew absolutely nothing other than the fact I've liked some of the author's previous works (and profoundly disliked one or two). I think there was some benefit, there – I wasn't expecting too much and, despite being a little annoyed to find out the eponymous devil is a literal demon, I was able to settle in.

Overall, the story is a decent Twilight Zone episode, with the main character, Samantha, trying (and failing) multiple different ways to get back the girl of her supposed dreams afrer whiffing mightily with a romantic dinner proposal. Sam's development (and realization of precisely how she got so entangled with this woman) are astute and not a vein of characterization I've seen in a lot of romance novels.

And Daphne, despite some somewhat dated references (that landed perfectly for me, a dated person in her own right), was witty and relatable.

My gripe comes with the ending. I won't spoil it entirely, but the denoument comes through a MacGuffin we only discover even exists once it's been activated and saves the day. It's fine, drawing on cultural tropes and expectations, but in a "beating the devil" romance narrative, I'd like to see more thought put into it than straight-up stealing the major plot point from This is the End, the stoner comedy apocalypse film from 2012.

A fun read, but don't expect a narratively satisfying ending.

I think we're all aspirational, in different ways. There's always a goal we're striving to accomplish, be it academic, professional or personal.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a teacher, having admired those who taught me during school. I also wanted to lose weight (hello, internalized fatphobia!), be a comedian (CHECK) and I was constantly starting (and never actually writing in) a journal.

Buying new notebooks? Sign me up! Clearly the only thing preventing me from writing in them was having the wrong journal. And then the wrong pen. And then the wrong writing setup.

It took me a while to realize I'm just bad at written introspection. But I always saw the possible utility of journaling, writing down the minutaie of your daily life for later perusal (for whatever specific need!).

I Hated You In High School is kinda thumbing its nose at me, but it's hard to argue with success. Tessa doesn't remember exactly why she hates Olive, her one-time high school confidante. She just remembers the bad vibes.

But luckily, Tessa is a cartoonist! So we get to see the cartooning journal she kept that lays out all the excruciatingly gay teen agony that caused the upset in the first place. And of course, there'd be no reason to be reliving all of this if there weren't certain ... feelings ... coming back to the fore.

I like this graphic novel. The art style is fun and loose without feeling lazy, and the characters are remarkably well-rounded. There's maybe a bit too much anxiety and worry suffused through these pages, but that also might just be me, projecting.

It's probably aspirational to think that knowing yourself better – being able to review past decisions, thoughts and feelings from the perspective you had while going through it all – can lead to happiness, or at least a better understanding of your current self. But part of being our best selves requires that we examine how we were in the past, even if only to emulate the things we did correctly (though, honestly, it's more often avoiding making the same mistakes). In that sense, we could all stand to remember why we Hated (Someone) In High School.

I've mentioned previously my opinion that books written about books and bookstores are cheating and, while my distaste hasn't changed much, I am at least more willing to be forgiving when judging authorial intent. After all, with some outliers, it's not hard to imagine that most authors write books because they love books. They love reading, they love reading, they view bookstore as both respite and (literally) providing for their needs.

So I guess it makes sense why you might center a book around a book club, with heavy inserts about the joy of local bookstores, and even some meta-commentary on the very book you're reading (AM I INSIDE A ROMANCE NOVEL RIGHT NOW?)

(Well, yes, but not related to this book.)

Thus I cannot give Can We Skip to the Good Part? any more than a soft "recommended." It's a perfectly fine book, Brayden is a reliable author. She seemed to enoy upping the spiciness more than I remember from previous books – though that also may just be a fault in my memory; the last few romances I've ready have tended to stay around 1-2 "cooking" scenes (is that how we're using this metaphor? Do we need to extend the metaphor fully or are good with the just singular euphemism?).

But I appreciate that she took her own criticism to heart, trying to liven up the plot a little and not rely on overly trope-y contrivances that veteran readers would know to expect. I think that's actually the reason I would still recommend this book, rather than the uber-qualified "maybe': its respect for fans of the genre. There are plenty of explainers, but this book was written with the frequent reader in mind. We get the explicit explication of dislike of having the Main Drama come from miscommunication; when the Big Drama comes, communication is so open it borders on the comedically superliminal.

It's funny, sometimes I struggle with the mid-ratings becuase there are many times where I think the book would be amazing ... if I hadn't just read one (or several) that aimed at or near the same target and succeeded better than the one I'm in now. Oftentimes I'm thankful I can find pieces, like those mentioned above, that are different and signifcant enough to provide the joy of artistry, that jagged little piece of reality that seeps through the fictional construct you find yourself snagged on, and appreciating.

So we will ignore the papyrosophistry of the book-book (and pity the poor cover artist who had to compete against the completely imaginary covers by one of the MCs) and revel instead in the relationships, the communication and connection we can get through a well-crafted romance, and instead celebrate the book (even if we're reading it electronically).