Meeting Millie

                              

Title: Meeting Millie

Series: Oxford Romance #1

Author: Clare Ashton

Published: March 1, 2023

Pages: 421

Genre: LGBT Romance

Oxford – celebrated city of dreaming spires and class warfare – is an ambition come true for lesbian, geeky, upper-middle-class Charlotte and straight, charismatic, working-class Millie.

Against the odds, theirs is an instant, best friendship. Forever.

Exuberant Millie is a breath of fresh air for polite Charlotte and a force of nature within the university's hallowed walls. And they are going to be the best lawyers of their year and change the world.

But their world changes instead when things go queerly sideways, and they haven’t seen each other since.

Ten years on and Charlotte returns to where it all began. She has a new job at a prestigious law firm and Oxford is as beautiful as ever. She’s a safe distance from her overbearing barrister mother Nicola and three office floors from her snappy college mentor, Olivia.

Then Millie bounds around the corner wanting to be friends again and it's as if the last decade never happened. Will it be different the second time around? Can they be friends again? Or will love and attraction change things?

Meeting Millie is a sapphic romance about the nature of friendship, how two people change over the years, and how they see themselves and each other.

This was a really sweet book. Millie and Charlotte were best friends and college and they're reuniting ten years later, back in Oxford where it all began. 

I loved the use of time in this book. You have the past, where Charlotte and Millie are meeting and becoming best friends in college. Then you have the present, where Charlotte and Millie are reunited and reliving all of those feelings in the same places. Reminded at every turn at how happy they were. Then you have this vague, vaguely sad, middle past where they had a falling out and haven't spoken to one another for 10 years. 

Millie and Charlotte as best friends are wonderful. They have a lot of love for one another, and a lot of fun together. It's clear that they're both miserable without the other. Millie and Charlotte as platonic life partners, also wonderful. I love the idea of building your life with your best friend by your side. The idea that you could have a beautiful life together, even if it never gets romantic or sexual, is..beautiful. 

*SPOILERS AHEAD**

But then they have this bi awakening for Millie, and look at that....she is super attracted to Charlotte. The chemistry was good, don't get me wrong. But I kind of hated it also... I wish I didn't. It was so sweet. But I really didn't love them together as a full couple. I wasn't rooting for them in that way.

I think the main thing about it that I didn't love, was that Millie needed a "why" to come to this realization. I know that everyone's journey is different. I know that people realize truths about themselves in a myriad of ways. But Charlotte was there and in love with Millie for Years. Then she couldn't be there because it wasn't good for her anymore. Loving Millie, and being looked over by her, became too hard. Then they're reunited and Charlotte is convinced she's over it enough to try to be friends again. And look at that, now Millie can't look at Charlotte without getting turned on. And if that had been it, she just finally realized she was bi, it would have been a near perfect book. 

But that wasn't it. I could have used a trigger warning for this part, I think. Maybe the trigger warnings are available. But we all know I'm terrible at preparing myself for what I'm going to find in a book that I've decided to read. But Millie hasn't been experiencing sexual attraction for years before she's reunited with Charlotte. She hasn't because she lost a baby late-term in her pregnancy. She had made all of these plans for her baby and her life, and she was brought to this crashing halt. And holy cow. That was super hard to read. But it also really made me so angry that this was why it was OK for her to face her attraction and romantic desire for Charlotte. Like Charlotte deserved better... 

Ratings

Stars: 3/5

Spice: 2/5