Until We’re Dust by Stacey Rhoades | Quick Thoughts #bookbites #booktubetbr #booktube

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]I finished a book yesterday. I'm going to tell you about it. I read Until We're Dust by Stacey Rhodes. This is a small-town second-chance romance and it features dual timelines. Fear my definition of angsty romance and the author's definition of an of an angsty romance are two vastly different things because apart from having a little bit of a miscommunication issue and not even a miscommunication, just a lack of clarification issue, there was no angst in this. There was some outside forces, a little bit of outside drama that caused some big feelings, but for the most part, this was a cozy romance.

[00:00:39]Don't get me started on how I feel about cozy romances, but our characters are basically telling each other that they have always loved each other at the 25% mark and by the halfway mark, they are already in a relationship. I did like the relationship as it was. I liked the dynamics that we got between our two characters. I thought that Bailey and James worked well together as a couple, but honestly, this was just too [ __ ] long. It was almost 500 pages and with the dual timeline, the past is 14 years prior to the current events in the book and it's was wholly unnecessary other than the breakup. Everything before the breakup was just a 19 and a 20-year-old going on dates in a small town. Bore me to tears and it didn't help by the fact that our current day timeline was basically the same thing, them reconnecting and going on dates in a small town. The writing is fine if you like cozy romances. This is a closed door romance, which I don't have a problem with and it's fine enough, but it's too slice of life for me.