One of the things I love most in good romance writing is when authors let themselves really play in the arena of observations about the ways in which we all cope with our varied emotions. When things are really clicking Romance books become case studies in the human condition – just like all my other favorite writings across various genres. Birding with Benefits walks the line between doing that well, and being great at it – which is why I landed on a 3.5 rounded up rating for this book.
The main characters in Sarah T. Dubb’s work are both wrangling with the end of long-term relationships. Celeste is divorced from her college sweetheart and her 17-year-old daughter is getting ready to graduate high school. Celeste’s reasoning for divorcing is that she felt herself being made smaller and smaller over time, and nearly 20 years into the relationship it was time to let herself be free to grow again, even if that meant upending her family’s lives. John is similarly recovering from the end of a long relationship where all the fault lines already existing were exposed be choices his ex-girlfriend made.
Which is how we find the characters for the opening meet cute: John needs a partner for the Annual Bird Watching contest, and his friend who is supposed to do it with him needs to back out at the last minute and sends Celeste in his place. However, Celeste thinks John needs someone to pose as his relationship partner, not birding partner and shenanigans ensue. Celeste and John catch on to the misunderstanding relatively quickly but with events already in motion Celeste convinces John to let her help him even though she is a birding novice, and they’ll pretend to be together so that they can each keep meddling friends from trying to set them up with other people – a win for two people committed to being single. But… attraction happens, as is the way with Romance books, and it grows into something more. If both sides are willing to explore the possibilities.
This is where I knew that 3 stars was my base rating, this book was never really in pure 4-star territory. Each character had aspects of their personalities and past relationship trauma which had caused them to develop coping mechanisms which were preventing them from seeing possibilities. The middle of the book is weighed down with the characters doubling down on the only answer to their previous relationship issues is to not do relationships. Celeste’s inner drum beating on this issue soured me because it was one note. Dubbs did such a good job giving her characters texture that this aspect stood out to me significantly (it’s a thing I’ve been noticing in Romances for a bit now, my old complaint was unnecessary breakups as third act tension releases and now it’s a single reason/experience for an opinion/assumed fact).
But while that weakness lingered in the text, I felt the feelings/wanting more realization by John and how it was handled with Celeste worked (an earned third-act breakup!), as did the beautiful conversation that Celeste had with her best friend. My other knock against the book though was that for characters in their early forties (John’s age is never super clear, but it’s around there) they came off sounding much younger than that every so often and it occasionally pulled me out. I could also see a reader with birding knowledge maybe not loving the lack of actual birding on the page, because when John and Celeste are out on the trails it is the best part of the book. But I had a good time with this book and its characters during a particularly bad run of days, so a week out I still feel comfortable rounding up and not down.