Thank you to NetGalley and Bonnie Solomon for this DRC. This is my honest review. 

 

Pearly Gates is a soul living in the afterlife with her perfect boyfriend and her (semi) perfect life. She works in waste management, but it’s not that bad. Mostly. Sometimes. Occasionally. 

 

After her boyfriend dumps her, she has to create a plan to win him back: by taking over someone’s human charges and helping them with their struggles. Is it entirely legal doing that? Well. Let’s not think about that. She finds herself being dragged into their lives and forming bonds with them she never could have imagined. 

 

I really loved the setting in this book. It’s mostly set in this bookstore/cafe called Thunderbolt Books and Coffee, and the setting gives off cozy and comforting. It also has so much queer Rep, such as a former drag queen, gender fluidity, non-binary major sc, trans major sc, and so much more. 

 

I had received an audiobook of this copy, and I wasn’t particularly fond of the narration. I found that there could have been more emotions in some parts and maybe it was the writing, but I wasn’t very invested into the story. 

 

Pearly was bold and fierce. She had adapted a personality that didn’t let anyone walk over her, which was great in some ways, but in other ways it clashed with other people’s thoughts and dreams which was something that I disliked. She could sometimes push too hard; something she ended up learning the hard way. She grew as a person, but I believe she still has a lot more learning to do, and I almost wish I would have seen more of her growing near the end of the story. 

 

I didn’t build a strong connection to the characters in the story. While I enjoyed reading about them, I wasn’t thoroughly invested into their stories and their lives; I found myself just following along their story, not really feeling like I was in it. The characters were fleshed out and had many layers to them, but nothing stood out to me to be able to fall in love with them. 

 

While this wasn’t my favourite book, I would still recommend this to someone that I think would like it.