For the past two books, Iris Kelly has been adamant about one thing: she doesn’t date. While her best friend Claire fell in love with Delilah and her other best friend Astrid came out and fell in love with Jordan, Iris was firmly on the sidelines. Despite frequent hook-ups and occasional flings, she stayed far away from the emotional side of relationships. All of that changes in “Bright Falls #3”, Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date. I was lucky enough to receive a copy of this audiobook from the Libro.fm influencers program, and I absolutely adored it.

Ashley Herring Blake has already created a vibrant, dynamic world around the town of Bright Falls, Oregon. It’s been so fun watching each member of the original friend group trio couple up and expand their circle to fit their new girlfriends (and Jordan’s brother). This book expands the circle once again, this time taking us into an entirely new group of friends.

In the beginning of the book, Iris Kelly heads out to the bar for a hookup. There, she meets Stevie, the beautiful and incredibly anxious woman who hasn’t hooked up with anyone since ending her 6 year relationship with her ex. The aforementioned ex , Adri, also happens to be a key part of her friend group and is dating another one of their friends. Rounding out the Portland posse is Wren, an Asian nonbinary pansexual person who I’m hoping will get a spin-off book of their own.

Stevie and Iris’ first hookup is disastrous, but in an attempt to save face Stevie lies to her friends, saying that her and Iris are dating. This would have been innocent enough, but then Iris audition s for a play at Adri’s theater—a play that Stevie is starring in. This leads to the fake dating scheme, and generally contrived hijinks ensue.

I really liked both Iris and Stevie! Blake tends to take on a “problem” with each of her main characters, and for Iris that was slut shaming and for Stevie that was anxiety. I do think these things were handled well, and I personally related to many of Stevie’s descriptions of wanting her anxiety gone but not knowing who she would be without it. The book was cute and lighthearted, just like the rest of the series was.

As always, a persistent point of contention around Blake’s books are the lack of diversity. She writes nearly exclusively white cis characters. I sit firmly in the camp that authors don’t need to write-in diversity outside of their experiences. Diversity for the sake of scoring woke points is just not normally good representation! It’s important to read diversely, but reading diversely means actually reading books written by authors of color and trans people, not just bugging your white fave to throw in another character.

That being said, in this book Blake does include an Asian nonbinary character in Stevie’s friend Wren and frequently mentions background characters that are described as “Black” or “transgender”. But these characters don’t ever really get any speaking time! Wren exists purely to serve Stevie’s narrative without any ambitions or character development of their own. Like I said, maybe they’ll get a spin-off, but in this book they were definitely another POC side character written to help the white lead.

Other than that major caveat, I enjoyed the book for what it was, which is a silly little romance book that’s tropey but nonetheless cute. Not all books have to be literary masterpieces for me to love reading them! If you’re considering purchasing the book, please use our Bookshop affiliate link so we can receive a small commission.

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