I liked this novella a tad more than I liked the prior one in the series, Under One Roof, both of which are well-retooled prior stories. As before, the three main characters (including the one from the next novella) are friends and women in STEM, hence the term STEMinist.
Which, to reiterate, I don’t love but I also don’t hate.
If I had to clarify why this novella worked for me more than the prior one, I would say that it doesn’t mince words as to what it is. This is the trope of “we were together and now we are not and go,” except our two main characters Sadie and Erik the Viking (who I always saw as Alexander Skarsgård) (which is funny, because in the novel Sadie hopes that Erik’s name has one of those ‘quirky Scandinavian letters’ but it doesn’t, and Skarsgård’s name does) were only together for 24 hours in which lots of soccer (football, in deference to my current resident country) talking and sex having was done.
Look, I mean, it’s a novella and essentially all of it takes place in an elevator where our two characters have to talk out what they’re angry about. It’s also a nice miscommunication, as in it’s decently laid out and reasonable on both sides. Was I particularly tickled because Sadie went to Caltech? Yes, indeed, I was! There’s a frankly unnecessary ‘personality’ quirk given to Sadie where she’s very superstitious, but for all the set up its given (she’s an engineering, but sees the superstition as a harmless nod to her Italian family) it’s not really…relevant? I suppose? Usually a characterization like that is a Chekov’s gun type point in the big conclusion. That probably made me happier as well.
