Review: The Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock (Spoiler-Free)

It feels like my best friend has just skipped a pebble across the glassy surface of my soul. If you chopped open my body, you'd see every jealous little wave as it slapped against my sternum.

This was... fine. Admittedly, I added this book to my TBR based on a recommendation from 2017 so that was my first mistake.

The Smell of Other People's Houses does nothing wrong per se, but it's not fleshed out enough to do a lot right either. I generally liked two of the four storylines, but was very bored by the other two remaining. It was interesting to read about Alaskan history, especially the politics of statehood, which I knew nothing about, but the historical elements fell to the wayside after the first few chapters.

The romance between Alyce and Sam was definitely my favorite element. It was sweet and didn't take up too much page time, but was developed enough emotionally to feel satisfying.

Overall, this was alright but forgettable.

(As a personal aside, I have to mention how hard I was laughing at the description of the ballet audition. No ballerina starts a combination just standing with her arms in high first and she also certainly would not land a leap "ON THE TIP OF ONE TOE". I was actually in tears imagining that.)