#bookreview: Blind Date with a Supervillain | H.L. Burke

Saturday's cover reveal caught your interest? Here's my review of the first book in the Supervillain Romance Project series!

Blind Date with a Supervillain by H.L. Burke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this during my 6-hour layover in the Haneda airport because WHY NOT? I did purposely pack it in the hand-carry because it looked like a light enough read for travelling, both in weight/heft and brain space required.

Blind Date with a Supervillain is a sweet college romance - but with superpowers. I'm not a big superhero story fan so I haven't actually read any of the other books in Burke's Supervillain (or Superhero) series but you don't really need to, I guess, because this one works fine as the start of a new series. (I've mostly read her other works: Spellsmith & Carver: The Complete Boxset and Spice Bringer are great reads!)

Saying that, I went in slightly unsure, but ended up loving the book. It's light, it's funny, and it's a sweet romance that hits all the right spots.

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#CoverReveal: Second Chance Superhero | H.L. Burke

Once a slacker, now a superhero, but will his ex buy the change?

Eleven years ago, Brayden Water's high school sweetheart slammed the door in his face. Floundering, he found purpose first in the military, then by volunteering for genetic enhancements and joining the Department of Super-Abled as a full-time hero. Just when everything's looking up, a family emergency summons him back to the hometown he gleefully put in his rearview. And guess who else is back in town? 

Rachel Blum has had it with men in general. A single mom who managed to scratch her way through medical school, she's accepted that she can't depend on anyone ... especially not her sometimes criminal baby daddy, and definitely not her high school ex who has popped up out of nowhere after a decade of radio silence. Dang, though, Brayden's even hotter than she remembered, and there's ... something different about him now, though she can't quite put her finger on what. Could he really have finally gotten his act together? Can she take the risk?

Brayden's bitterness over Rachel's rejection slowly turns to admiration and begrudging affection. But even if he drops the fact that he can now fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes, will she ever see him as anything but a small-town loser? When her son's father starts causing trouble, though, Brayden realizes, she might just need a hero in her life after all.

Preorder on Amazon

Add to GoodReads

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Second Chance Superhero is a new Superhero Romance from author H.L. Burke and part of the longer, multi-series SVR/DOSAverse expanded universe of superhero fiction. 

The book launches on September 9th, but you can now pre-order it for 99c on Amazon. 

It’s a tale of love after heartbreak, coming home, and second chances featuring a cocky but damaged superhero and the high school sweetheart who broke his heart but is now a single mom (and doctor)  haunted by her own past… also, French fries, a cart-load of wine, and surprisingly high number of dinosaurs. 

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REVIEWS FROM EARLY READERS:

"Can superheroes be cozy? Second Chance Superhero is the novel equivalent of a Marvel movie, a shopping cart of wine, and a scented candle." 

— C.O. Bonham, author of Runaway Lyrics

"Great story! It’s like a Hallmark movie with a sci-fi budget."

— Max B. Sternberg, author of The Rhise of Light

“H.L. Burke’s superhero books just keep getting better and better! (And they were amazing to begin with.) I have devoured every book in the series and eagerly await each new release. In Second Chance Superhero, I was sucked in to Brayden’s and Rachel’s plight, rooting for them to overcome their pasts, and couldn’t stop reading. No matter which book you pick up in this series, I highly recommend!”

— Michele Israel Harper, award-winning editor and author of Kill the Beast

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H. L. Burke has written more books than she can count—because she's written a lot of books, not just because she can't count very high. 

Easily distracted by shinies, she has published in many subgenres including fantasy romance, Steampunk, and superhero, and always creates story worlds with snark, feels, and wonder. 

Married to her high school crush, she spends her time writing, spoiling her cat, and supervising her two supervillains in training (aka her precocious daughters). 

An Oregon native, she wilts without trees and doesn't mind the rain. She is a fan of delicious flavor, a follower of the Light, and a believer in happily ever after.

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Website | Amazon | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Tiktok

#bookreview: Her Radiant Curse | Elizabeth Lim

Her Radiant Curse by Elizabeth Lim
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I suppose it must be said that the mysterious origins of the Nameless Queen in Six Crimson Cranes and The Dragon's Promise was intriguing enough that I requested Her Radiant Curse when I saw it on NetGalley, even though I've been telling myself to stop picking up ARCs when I have no time to write reviews.

Here is the story of the two sisters, one beautiful and one hideous, and how their very existence changed the world. It is, thankfully, not one of sibling rivalry and resentment because of the disparity of how they're treated, but one where the two sisters love each other so much that they would give up their own lives for the other.

It is a story that deals a lot with the idea of beauty - how one is treated because of how they look, the expectations and burdens of both beauty and ugliness. Whilst the focus is on Channi as the protagonist, it is also about Vanna and how the beautiful sister has to always act in acceptable ways because everyone expects it of her. It brings to mind Isabela Madrigal from Encanto.

There are beautiful and touching moments in Her Radiant Curse and I think that the relationships in the book are the core of what kept me reading, from Channi and Vanna's special bond, to Channi's close friendship with Ukar and her tumultuous alliance (frenemyship? lol) with Hokzuh. Unfortunately, for it being written in first person from Channi's POV, I did not really like Channi very much at all - which, I suppose, is the reason for this rather detached review.

I will have to say the ending was great though.

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from Hodder & Stoughton via NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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#musicmonday: How Long (Song of the Martyrs) // Jesus My Beloved | Josh Yeoh

This momentary light affliction

Is working in me an eternal weight of glory

And in the waiting

Keep me steady

Until You come

#mycheveningyear: Anna's guide to #tea in London

Everyone knows about the British and their tea. What not everyone realises is that most of the tea drunk in England, especially in local homes, is either black sludge or milk with a dash of tea.

Okay, that's a little harsh, but it's also mostly true--at least in my experience. I don't really know why, seeing they have so many great local tea brands. Maybe I just meet the wrong people lol.

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ANYWAY, I apparently abandoned this post in January 2020, but after talking to this year's batch of Chevening scholars, I felt like maybe I should finish it. This isn't a definitive guide! This is just a list of the places I went and the teas I liked. (I favour fruit/floral + black tea blends.) Also, I mostly buy looseleaf because it's cheaper and lasts longer, so everything I mention is probably looseleaf unless stated. 

Twinings

This was from my 2016 trip. I didn't take a new photo in 2018.

This is number 1 on my list because the two "famous" English tea brands you get in Malaysian shops is Twinings and Ahmad Tea, so you're likely to have already heard of this, or tried it before. Many cafes do use Twinings. You can probably get many of their teas in shops around London, but their flagship store is worth the visit because it's "the oldest tea shop in London". (I was just gonna say bla bla bla history, but they do mention it on their website)

What I especially liked was the mix and match section towards the front of the store where you can buy a bunch of individual teabags to see whether you liked it instead of having to commit to a whole box of like 15-20 teabags. (I used this to test the ones I wasn't sure about.) 

Favourite teas: Nutty Chocolate Flavour Assam Tea; Lady Grey (teabags)

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Whittard

You'll see that I also had a couple of Whittard teas in that big first tea splurge. I discovered Whittard at Covent Garden in my 2016 trip, so that's where I went back to. There's a bunch of shops in London, so it's not hard to find. Also, for continuity's sake, there is now a Whittard shop (tiny little island) in One Utama, and they do ship Malaysia-wide, so it's not impossible to find here. (Which can't quite be said of the others.)

I don't know if they're still doing this post-Covid, but what I liked about this shop was they always had various testers out so it was fun to try new stuff and consider whether I should get them.

Favourite teas: Piccadilly Blend; Baked Apple*; Lucky Lychee**

* They still don't have this in Malaysia booooo. Turkish Apple is NOT THE SAME.

** Not sure if this is a CNY special?

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Bird and Blend

This is my recent favourite, and it's sad that I only discovered them in my last few months in the UK, in the middle of Dissertation Summer. I wish I'd discovered them earlier! The most convenient shop is the one near Borough Market (which also has a few independent tea shops inside, but those have quite a limited range.), and it's probably on the way to one of the tube stations, because my association is something to do with Shakespeare's Globe + tube + Borough Market. 

I literally just stumbled upon it while walking, but the reason I noticed it particularly that day (instead of just following Google maps and walking by) was because someone in the Sheffield group mentioned "Bird and Blend" while we were there on our road trip so the sign caught my attention. 

Unlike the first two, Bird & Blend does not have a Malaysian store so I have been relying on people to hand carry it back to Malaysia haha. In previous years, they used to have free international shipping on Boxing Day but that's been discontinued. I mean you can pay for shipping but... 

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Favourite teas: Tea & Toast, Earl Grey Paradise (might be a special now?)

Also, the advent calendar is worth looking out for <3. I had a lot of fun with this!

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TWG

Okay, TWG is is a Singaporean brand so you don't particularly NEED to go there, but they have a fancy shop with quite a large range of teas downstairs and a cafe upstairs at Leicester Square. If' you're in the area to catch a play, it's just a nice place to stop and have afternoon tea and feel a little atas lol. 

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Favourite teas: I used to quite like their French Earl Grey but I don't know anymore. I don't think I have any repeat buys from TWG, especially not from London.     

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Main Takeaways

These are the bigger tea brands in London that are easy to get and have quite a wide range of teas. But I also enjoyed walking into tiny little teashops just to see what they had. Here are some:

From a random market stall in Scotland:

From random shops in Bath and Stratford-upon-Avon:

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From some tourist shop in Dublin:

One thing I ended up regretting was not getting a tea subscription when I arrived. They usually do this as an annual thing and could either be a subscription to a tea that you like, where they send you a new batch every quarter or so, or one of those tea boxes where they send you random new stuff every month for you to try! I kind of knew vaguely about stuff like that before, but just thought it was out of my budget. By the time I looked at how much tea I was buying and figured out what the options were, it was kind of too late to get a year's subscription. I'm not sure if they do shorter term subscriptions, but it's worth checking out if you know you're going to buy a lot of tea. 

Final thing to note: London has funny-tasting water, which sometimes translates into weird-tasting tea. (California had that as well but at least London admits to it.) I inherited a Brita water filter from Evelyn, which really helped haha (she was leaving, I was arriving). 

Anyway. This is all. I'll leave you with a tea stash from when I visited Europe. 

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#bookreview: The Invisible Hour | Alice Hoffman

The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked up The Invisible Hour because has a very interesting premise: What if books could save you literally?

It sure seems that way for Mia Jacob, whose discovery of the forbidden pleasures of reading gives her the courage and independence to leave the abusive cult she grew up in. And then, as the book blurb says, "time is more fluid than she imagines" and she "makes her way back in time".

For one who picked up the book on the basis of this really cool time-travel promise (with books at its heart!), the problem is that it takes a very long time to get there. Part One, which is about half the book iirc, is about how Mia's mom ran away to the Community, the dynamics between Ivy and Joel Davis - and Mia, Mia growing up there, and how she manages to escape through the power of books... which does make an interesting story, but I'm not really into cult stories as a general premise. I nearly wanted to give up when I finally got to Part 2, which jumps back in time to Nathaniel Hawthorn's timeline in the 1800s and how he meets this strange redhead who changes his life.

Reading other reviews, I suppose this is where the book either fails or succeeds - either you like the time travel or you hate it. I kinda liked the time travel bit, but I was annoyed it took so long to get there.

I did like how Hoffman dealt with the whole changing-the-past paradox, though. If Mia stays in the past, would Hawthorne never write the book that saves her? But Mia can't stay in the present, with Joel Davis still intent on claiming her (To keep as his own? To kill? It could go either way). Hoffman managed to handle that perfectly, closing the circle so the paradox ends.

However, why and how Mia time travels is never explained.(view spoiler)[ It just happens, she thinks it's the book, but is it?? No one knows. And if it's the book, how does Joel manage to follow her to the past? Is it actually some portal then? But then there would be multiple portals... so why hasn't anyone else stumbled across them? I'm also slightly annoyed that the ending is just a bit too ambiguous about whether she made it home to the present or not. (hide spoiler)] I've never read any Hoffman book before (at least that I recall), but she does seem to write more contemporary fiction with magical elements, veering towards magical realism. (There's a complexity/debate to what actually constitutes magical realism that I don't think I'm ready to figure out, so...idk.) So maybe that's how it's done in this kind of genre?? I suppose since it's more contemporary fic than strict SFF, the how and why doesn't matter as much - but seeing that this is the ONLY instance of time travel, it does feel rather contrived.

I suppose if you like a mash up of contemporary and historical fic with a dash of romance and time travel, you'll like this book.

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from Atria Books via Edelweiss. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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#bookreviews: Girls of Paper and Fire | Natasha Ngan

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Okay, I am having trouble writing this review because I did really like it, but at the same time, it was just... okay? Not sure how to reconcile this. I'm thinking it's more of a 4? 4.5? star, because I did enjoy reading it, but I'm not at gushing levels of love.

Plot-wise... it's not anything really new. It feels like one of those old-time Chinese (or well, generally East-Asian) royal dramas where you have all the concubines in the palace, some there willingly, most there by force. There's a yearly selection of "Paper Girls", and obviously the one taken there by force stumbles into a plot against the king... Only there's no flying kungfu, except where the demons have bird forms. And since this is a harem story, obviously Angry-I-Hate-The-King protagonist falls in love with someone who is not the king.

Content warnings at this point would be: LGBT romance, sexual abuse, physical abuse. Obviously, the king does not take "no" for an answer, and there's quite a lot of raping and looting going on in the wider world of Ikhara. It's not graphic - which is why I suppose it still fits under YA - but it's not something everyone can stomach. Oh, and if you're against authors killing dogs, you might want to skip Chapter 2.

I think what I quite enjoyed throughout the book was the setting. There's layer after layer of Chinese culture embedded into every scene; no obvious cutting away to "oh, but that feels really White" or "look at me I'm so exotic!" scenes, at least for me. Added bonus: the Chinese half of Ngan's heritage is Malaysian, so I loved the little touches of Malaysiana amidst the very Chinese court setting. Ikhara itself is a land cobbled together by a conquering king, so besides the obvious difference between the castes (Paper - fully human, Moon - fully demon, Steel - humans with some demon features), there's that subtle intermingling of human cultures, with saris alongside kebayas and cheongsams.

Thinking back, this isn't really a book I would have bothered to pick up on my own; I would have found the blurb much too romance-focused, and maybe a little too generic. But Ngan was reading at SRFC in 2019, and there was a Malaysian connection, so I figured I might as well just get a copy and have it signed. heh.

So now, even though I'll likely never read it again or bother to read the sequel, it'll just sit on my shelves because it's signed to me. haha.

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Interested in the series? Get it here:

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Whoo! I'm caught up on The 2023 Booktempter's TBR reduction challenge, with August's free read.

#bookreview: The Book of Fire | Christy Lefteri

The Book of Fire by Christy Lefteri
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a story within a story, about a woman and her daughter, about her husband and his loss, about a fire that devastated their forest, their town, their lives. It is about family and love, greed for money, regret, loss, and death. And always about the fire. And the man who started it.

It is also about kindness. The faithful dog that stays by their side, the old women they accompany, the family who takes them in, the baby jackal they rescue, the lies adults tell each other so the children do not learn of terrible truths too young.

And numbness. The kind that leaves you unable to do anything until it's too late. Leaving you wondering again, what if? What if I had acted? Is this then my fault?

The Book of Fire is a quiet book with a fiery soul. Irini tells it in the aftermath of the fire, in the midst of rebuilding their lives, as her husband, Tasso, struggles with depression and the damage to his hands and her daughter, Chara, deals with an injury and tries to make sense of it all. She copes with the difficult bits by telling us the past in a fairy tale, in that once upon a Harry Lime, interweaving stories of her father and her great-grandfather, of their movements to and from this little forest in Greece that she now calls home.

Lefteri does very well in writing about loss and love, and also interweaving in the histories of the people and the places in the novel. This feels a little lighter than The Beekeeper of Aleppo, maybe because the scope feels a little smaller, the stakes a little lower. It's a beautiful read, all the same.

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from Bonnier Books UK via NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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#bookreview: Songs in the Night | Laura Frances

Songs in the Night by Laura Frances
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this up because I kinda liked Slave, which is a totally different series I haven't finished. (Maybe I should finish that one.)

There is Eris, the unwanted child from the evil land, marked with a darkness she doesn't know of yet. And then there is Etan, the servant boy from the good land, who rises to be a knight. They meet once, twice. They never forget each other. Then war comes.

The story switches between both of their perspectives. Which is fine, but they don't actually meet each other again until about the 70% mark. I don't know why this irks me. Maybe it's the parallel storylines that don't quite meet. Maybe I just found Etan annoying. (Maybe I am in an irritable mood, I have been finding many characters and books annoying.) Then they have all sorts of assumptions about each other (or he does about her).

Or maybe it's the frequent use of foreshadowing lines that pull you out of the story.

Whatever it was, it was an interesting story, but it didn't quite pull me in.

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I went backwards to complete June's stretch goal from the 2023 Booktempter's TBR reduction challenge!

#bookreview: The King's Sword | CJ Brightley

The King's Sword by C.J. Brightley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's an okay enough story - prince escapes an assassination attempt, fearsome but outcast soldier helps put him on the throne.

I like the worldbuilding - it's very colourful and complex and quite interesting.

I just didn't feel like the story itself engaged me very much, like it doesn't quite pull the reader in. The last battle was also a little anticlimactic.

Caveat: read this in several disjointed sessions while travelling so maybe I didn't have the focus to fully engage.

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This is July's stretch goal from the 2023 Booktempter's TBR reduction challenge!

#bookreview: The Princess Bride | William Goldberg

The Princess Bride by William Goldman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this more, but as it is, I enjoyed the actual abridged parts of Morgenstern's story but every time William Goldman had an aside or explanation I just kept getting very annoyed.
(Thus this really short review)
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This is July's book from the 2023 Booktempter's TBR reduction challenge! I guess I have another justification for the short review: I'm travelling and have no time to think about long reviews haha. Maybe I'll update it later. But probably not. 

Join the #MalaysianMagic launch team!

 New book, new tour!

This one's an anthology that I really loved putting together. IT'S AMAZING, PEOPLE! Even if I have to say so myself *ahem*

Anyways, join the launch fun! Cover reveal's in about 2 weeks and the launch is in November at GTLF! Again! We have rough dates of between 23 - 26 November, which are the festival dates, but don't know the exact day/time yet.

But ebooks launch 23 November anyway. 

HERE'S THE SIGN-UP FORM. COME SHARE SHARE THIS BOOOOOOOK.

#bookreview: The Neverending Story | Michael Ende

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I put this on the TBR challenge because I had the physical book and I couldn't for the life of me remember whether I'd read it before. And now Goodreads tells me that back in 2011 I was sure that I had. idk. The story was vaguely familiar; it's popular canon and referenced in many places, after all. But I'm still not entirely sure if I'd read the book before or watched the movie. Maybe both.

Anyway. Whether this is a new read or a re-read, I did enjoy it quite a lot. I liked the structure of the book, the 26 alphabetical chapters, rather like a very long A to Z novel. I liked the meta-ness of Bastian the reader becoming Bastian, a character in the story. It made sense that the story had to include Bastian's transformation, bringing it full circle until he got back to the human world.

This book was published many many years ago, when people were more patient readers, when big fat books were IT. I'm just thinking that in the publishing industry today, Ende would have been told to cut the book into two, the first one ending when Bastian enters Fantastica and saves the Childlike Empress, and the second one being his journey through Fantastica. Because, you know, why sell one thick book when you could make more money selling TWO books instead?

It reads like two separate books anyway. The first half is more exciting, more action packed. Atreyu is a noble protagonist, even if he isn't ultimately the hero. Then you hit the second half and it's a bit of a slog as Bastian steadily becomes more and more annoying. Still, it doesn't feel complete without either half, so I guess it is what it is.

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#bookreview: The Gift of Restlessness: A Spirituality for Unsettled Seasons | Casey Tygrett

The Gift of Restlessness: A Spirituality for Unsettled Seasons by Casey Tygrett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Casey Tygrett defines restlessness as a state of being unsettled or irritated by the present-tense realities of life; when you're unable to go back, yet unsure of what's ahead. Which perfectly describes where I am, where I've been for a while now. But Tygrett assures us that there's nothing wrong with being restless. Rather, restlessness is what roots you further into who you are, and if dealt with correctly (instead of being ignored or left to fester) can transform us and give us a way through unsettled seasons.

The Gift of Restlessness is a thoughtful book - one that you need to sink your teeth into slowly. Where are your unsettled spaces, Tygrett asks, where are the places that hurt? Then he offers the option to remain in it, to ask the deep questions that will settle you instead of fighting, fleeing, or flopping.

I have fought long enough, I have fled far enough. There are two options left: to give up, or to "flop" as he puts it, or to remain.

Structured around the Lord's Prayer, Tygrett reminds us that this isn't a formula that we need to pray. It's not what to pray, but rather how to pray. The words are familiar, memorised and repeated over and over through life. But what does it truly mean? What are you truly praying for? And how can it guide you through unsettled seasons?

Throughout the book, Tygrett truly plays the spiritual director, always focusing you back on God - and how that Great Belonging with God can settle you, ground you, even when things around you are changing and shaking.

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from Broadleaf Books via Edelweiss. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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readings!

 

Happening this weekend solely because I was very energetic in April and set a bunch of things up and now I'm just like ok fine, follow through is a thing.

ALSO, hit 35K on the Tea Novel last night (well, slightly past midnight). Aiming for 40K by Thursday before I head down, wish me luck. 

Some #teanovel progress (plus excerpt)

Started running a late night online write-in since Saturday and I have written about 4k words!!! and figured out how to add in 2k words of a short story (of the prequel kind) into the main body of this novel. I probs need to edit more to make it kind of fit more seamlessly lol it's a bit of a flashback at this moment, but I guess that works too. 

anyways here's a stupid excerpt because lol.

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Jasmine was on to her third(ish) configuration of Attraction Potion (or Wish Fulfilment) which was quite a different wish list from her initial batch. She shook her head, wondering at how naive she’d been when she first started off. To be fair, she’d started with a list from twenty years ago, but she should have realised that it had to be updated, right from the start. 

Jasmine Teh’s Dream Man Husband

• Handsome. Looks like Hugh Grant. Or Wang Lee Hom (I mean, this is subjective, isn’t it?)
• Charming.
• Funny. (Nice, but not strictly necessary. Humour is so subjective.) Witty
• Romantic. (Debatable, but I’ll leave this in. He should at least make an effort and not be totally kayu.)
• Smart. Cannot be stupid ok!!!
• Tall. Well, taller than me. I am so short. So this should be easy. (If possible)
• Rich, if possible. But not so important as long as he is not poor. Responsible wage-earner with a full-time job. Financially stable.
• Loves me. Duh (I mean, or what’s the point? WHY WOULD YOU MARRY SOMEONE YOU HATE I DON’T GET IT)
• doesn’t talk to that annoying Kelly in 3H.
• should be able to tolerate Jason I guess. 
• bold, knows what he wants in life (Ok, the Francis situation didn’t work out too well, but he can’t be like a pushover or drifter either)
• rich, vibrant personality has an interesting personality (Do I mean outgoing? Hmmm not quite but…I think?)
• within 3-5 years of my age, preferably older (aka I’m not a cradle snatcher)
• gets along with Bryan and the gang
• not anti-magic??? *Should ask Long if this is something we can reveal to spouses if they’re not magical themselves.
• Not boring - has some sort of life outside of work/hobbies
• COMPATIBLE*** (Do I mean emotionally? Or in life goals? Or like personality? Or well… I guess in everything?!?!)

She studied the list several times, trying to figure out if there was anything else she wanted to change. The last two items were probably the best she could do to counter that disaster date with Francis. She was tempted to add “no corporate types” to the list, but Penang was so small and so full of factories and multinationals that that clause would narrow her dating pool too much. And artsy types were rarely financially stable so… that would bring her back to square one, wouldn’t it?

Maybe she should talk to a few more of the guys her magic selected before offering them the tea. Or…would it be a better idea to offer all of them the tea and then see who actually wanted to date her? Date a few of them and see who she liked more, or which date was the least terrible? 

Because the more she thought about it, the more it felt like it didn’t really make sense to just choose the one with the best fit because “best fit” on a list of criteria doesn’t mean that they’ll actually fall in love. 

Unless, now she added in “compatible”… that should really rank them by how well they’d fit, right?

Ugh, this was confusing. Maybe Bryan was right and she should just use a dating app.