I had really high hopes for A Show For Two after reading Counting Down With You last year, but overall I feel like Tashie Bhuiyan’s sophomore novel fell short of the bar I had set. While the premise of the novel sounded so interesting and had so much potential, I think it ultimately ended up being CDWY but in a different font. The novel also had so many plot arcs, characters, and themes clashing with one another that it was hard for me to connect to any of the romance. It doesn’t help that I’m not a big fan of first-person point of view, which is made worse by some really strange sentence construction that Bhuiyan employs (present perfect tense which threw off my sense of time off so subtly it bothered me through the entire novel). I also think perhaps she saw criticism of her previous two protagonists, that they were in general toothless and without any flaws or friction, and then just went wildly swinging in the other direction. Mina and Emmitt are truly abrasive and unpleasant to read about. I didn't feel their relationship develop at all, just a switch flip somewhere around the middle of the novel. Their dialogue, which some call banter but I call excruciating is punctuated with unnatural pet names and "Gen Z" slang which is so hyperspecific to a certain kind of internet subculture, it reads as juvenile, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. this book has hate-to-love, a poc romance since mina is bangladeshi and emmitt is half-chinese (his hair is dyed blond on the front cover as part of his undercover scheme, hence his darker natural roots!), a celebrity love interest, a complex sister relationship, in-depth discussions of mental health, a chaotic film club, loads of gen z antics (since i'm gen z myself), and nuanced family dynamics as the main character navigates her last year of high school. counting down with you', bhuiyan's debut novel, received widespread success if we're talking about the positive buzz and reception it managed to generate on booktok. a love story featuring a bangladesh-muslim girl with her white savior boyfriend, there seems to be ambivelence with which people approach the book. the booktok community have shown their true colours, seeing as they always push for representation and visibility for marginalized voices, but when members of those communities speak up on how harmful that representation was, they seem to turn a blind eye. Another problem I have with her character? Her passions. She was always talking about how much she loved filming and the industry, but I never saw that passion reflected. Only the passion to win the contest and get out of her house. Also, the parts of the script that were seen... did she really win with that? I'm not an expert on screenwriting or anything, but I don't think I would enjoy a film with that script... Examples:

This is why I always finish the books I start. I was halfway through this one and I wasn't really enjoying it cause I kind of hated the main character (I still don't like her, but I don't hate her now), but she has some character growth and I end up liking the book and the romance. Thank you Netgalley for ruining my expectations once again. If a celebrity doesn't call me sweetheart or love- Dang it, I need a life. I’ve aged out of this genre. I spoke to a friend who is currently reading this (and who also read Bhuiyan’s previous novel) and we’re just baffled by so many elements at work here. I will be going into detail so this is the heads-up for SPOILERS, though it is a standard young adult contemporary novel, so make of that what you need.for me, this just screams unoriginality. are you really so uncreative? using your friend's name is FINE, but when your friend is a ny bestselling author who is pretty well-known, it's just embarrassing lol bhuiyan's bff irl is chloe gong (i think at least lol) and emmit's mother is called..... claire.gong. i-- There was the representation aspect, which, as always, I adore reading about. The struggles of living among people who would maybe not understand the struggles you face, and I felt like that was delved into thoughtfully and quite well. From production to performances and comedy to collaborations: Nahal Ashrafi wants to explore it all

its very diverse (whether it does something interesting with all that diversity is whole other can of worms tho) emmit is literally the LI in cdwy (forgot his name)--down to the "bad boy" smirks and the rings and brooding personality that's just a cover for his sad, vulnerable heart. also they both have secret passions their parents would disapprove of so you can empathise with how HARD their poor lives are Book Genre: Contemporary, Contemporary Romance, Fiction, Health, LGBT, Mental Health, Romance, Young Adult, Young Adult Contemporary, Young Adult Romance and if it's not just them, it's mina with emmitt, whose first meeting is absolutely terrible and riddled with so much antagonism and i couldn't help but wonder " how are they possibly going to soften up to each other? and then i just found myself so caught up in the adventures they take around new york city, capturing so many moments together on film, it was like they were in a motion picture with them as the starring leads. seeing the way they lower each other's defenses and genuinely connect over their shared love of the arts and how it connects to their lives, it was very sweet and so incredibly heartfelt because there's so much surprise they find in how much they come to relate to each other. it's as if they couldn't even fathom the idea of the other being an equal of sorts and yet as soon as that line connects them both, they bond so well it made me shriek with how much my heart bursted at the seams (honestly).this is going to sound harsh, but i just don't think bhuiyan is a very strong writer. i know she's young and just starting out, but it felt so amateur. so much telling and boring, skippable writing. very wattpad-ish, too. I wish we had explored the details of Mina's relationship with her parents more. One of the most emotionally resonant things in the novel is that she got her love of the movies from her parents taking her to the theater when she was younger, and despite that relationship souring as she grew up, she still loves cinema. She questions multiple times what it was, when it was, that changed. The most logical thing to do would be a revelation as to why Mina's parents treat her and her younger sister so poorly. It would not need to be forgiveness or absolution, abuse victims don't owe that to anyone. I do however believe that it would be context and emotional nuance that the story sorely needs. I know that life doesn't necessarily provide closure or answers like that, but fictional narratives do, which is why we return to them constantly, again and again.

i don't think i ever knew what it felt like to want to protect a fictional character with your whole heart until i met mina rahman, i'm just......no words. A book that you would read solely to stave off boredom and let go of stress, and a story that you shouldn’t look too into it.now, rep problems aside, i also have qualms and concerns with bhuiyan's writing, which, not only uneven in pacing, seems to fail at fleshing out characters to be truly dimensional and tangible. i admit that i am holding this author's works to a higher standard, because i truly had hope and high expectations for her work, and i always want to see women of colour succeed in an industry that seems to predominantly cast light on white women(sjm, cassie clare, colleen hoover, regarding ya and romance publishing spaces). after reading em's review, which reports this book to be no greater than bhuiyan's previous work, i am disappointed, to say the least. i don't personally share the identity myself, and i am not claiming to be someone who can speak for the authenticity of the characters bhuiyan portrays. but when muslim, bangladeshi-muslim american reviewers speak up and share their thoughts about how harmful the rep in 'counting down with you' was, its a warning sign that can't be ignored. I guess my experience with this book wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad either. It was really entertaining and it had some good moments :) How shallow the familial relationships were (I believe they were flesh and cardboard, so it’s an improvement! Right?) I think this has been my problem with books from this author and Asian representations, be it South Asian among others. See, I am from the Hispanic community, so I have no hand to judge it, however, BECAUSE I’m part of a minority, I can say that not all parents are like that, and it’s sad that all the Asian representation I see nowadays just touches on that aspect. Yes, it’s incredibly accurate, more so than most, however, I believe that there is some good to be found. Some understanding to comprehend in how the parents act. Don’t get me wrong, trying to dictate your child’s way of living is unforgivable, but I feel like the main character and her sister made them out to be worse than they were.

Of course, as nice as trying to remember a book I read months ago to then write a review of the ARC that literally got published a WHILE ago, while trying to sound as coherent and responsible as possible.I was about to burst into song, but I think the universe and Apollo forgot to gift me with good memory when it comes to music-