I love the idea behind this one, snowed in is one of my favorite tropes! I could only read the beginning before I got too busy, but what I read was really good.

I picked this up because I follow the author on TikTok and find their conversation about non-traditional family structure FASCINATING. I picked this up excited to read a poly romance from a poly person, not just a spicy romance written by a straight woman.

I was surprised (but not upset) that there are open door spicy scenes in this one!! There is also found family, snowed in, fun pets and an adorable child. This book was full of good queer/diverse rep which I so appreciate.

I'm not *totally* sure that I buy in to the 'none than all the sudden' character development of our MC, but I'm over that. Overall, I liked this book, am excited it exists and can't wait to read what Markus writes next!

This was such a sweet, quick read! I did find myself wanting more depth from a few characters, but this had such great heart! I love the spotlight on found/chosen family!

Really cute people was a really cute story. I always love seeing positive polyamorous representation as well as having two trans main characters. Heck to the yeah!

Another thing I especially appreciate about this book is that we have a non-binary main character who's assigned gender is never told and honestly you can't guess either and it is such a breath of fresh air.

I also kind of live for queer adult burnout stories because it feels so relatable to me right now. I really liked Charlie's slice of life adventure and seeing them geek out about one of their favorite activists and then living with them in a snowed in situation was super fun. This one has a lot of tropes in it but they're all done super well. Overall I really really liked it.

Nonbinary MC, Black Bisexual LI, Fat Trans Man LI, multiple secondary queer characters. Honestly everyone's basically queer.

I thought that Really Cute People was a delightful book. I’m always thrilled to see romance novels out there with poly relationships. I liked all the characters in this and enjoyed the storyline. I think there was a little too much going on in the sidelines but I still really liked the book.

I love the voice on this one. Charlie the MC is burnt out and says yes to a work trip. While there they realize their Airbnb is not vacated and then a snow storm hits.

Though lucky for them, they are with one of their idols and her husband and daughter. So far there is poly vibes happening. They all seem so comfortable together and this town they are in has such a tight knit queer community. Really enjoyed this one! I love poly romances.
Despite being set in the snow it felt warm and cozy

the cutest! Is the first poly romance I've ever read and won't be the last. This book is full of community love.

3.5 stars!

"Really Cute People" by Markus Harwood-Jones was, well, really cute and extremely unique! Some readers might be turned off by the insta-love of it all, but it really didn't bother me. It does start very, very slowly at first, but once the main character, Charlie, meets the other characters, Buffy and Hayden, things start moving quickly and spicily. I enjoyed all of the characters in this story, particularly Buffy. Buffy's dynamic with Hayden was both alluring and extremely collaborative. And not to mention, sexy! Once the three of them are snowed in for a whirlwind weekend, their relationship quickly becomes intimate. I think this book also boasts an engaging, interesting glance at polyamory. I'm not sure I have read many (if any) books where the characters are polyamorous, but I sure appreciate the representation. I think this story works so well because all of the characters are likable despite their flaws. I also like the commentary on both burnout and found family. I appreciate the open-door spice in such a representative queer story! This was a great read that could have benefitted from a little bit of tightening up in its earlier chapters.

Thank you to NetGalley, Markus Harwood-Jones, Harlequin - Romance, and Carina Adores for the complimentary ARC of this book. All opinions are my own. I was not compensated for this review.

A fantastic queer polyromance set in small town Ontario that sees a big city office worker, Charlie, burnout and sent into the country for work only to get snowed in and stuck rooming with one of his gay idols and her trans husband and daughter. I absolutely loved the diverse queer rep in this book, the found family and the way different types of families and sexualities is completely normalized. We need more books like this one!! Really cute people was REALLY CUTE with a huge amount of heart!! Many thanks to NetGalley and the author for an early digital copy in exchange for my hoenst review! This was also good on audio too.

Steam level: a few open door scenes

𝚁𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐: 4⭐️
𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: contemporary romance 📚

𝙼𝚢 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜:
A super sweet and fun story

𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎:
Character growth
Spicy scenes
Found family
Polyamorous relationships
Snow days
All the queer joy
Forced proximity

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚍:
All the diversity and representation
The daughter!

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗’𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛:
Started off a little slow

Really Cute People by Markus Harwood-Jones was such an enjoyable story.
A fun and exciting queer poly romance that was super entertaining.
I absolutely ADORED this book. I was hooked from the start and found it ridiculously hard to put down.
The characters were well written and the relationship was exciting. They had good communication and all worked well together.
The plot of this was charming and fun to read.
I will most definitely be picking up Markus Harwood-Jones next titles!

Thank You NetGalley and Carina Adores for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

I had trouble staying engaged while reading this book. I think it’s in part to the lack of tension throughout the first two acts. For me, the story doesn’t start until around the 70% mark.

The main character, Charlie, stays in an Airbnb for a work trip. The host family mixed up their days and are still home when Charlie arrives and will be in the house for Charlie’s first night there. The family is set to leave the next morning when they all get snowed in together. Charlie has been burned by a bio family and found family and is captivated by this host families mix of loving chaos throughout the week they’re stuck together.

There is some flirting between Charlie and the host married couple, Buffy and Hayden, but it was written in a way that it lacked the appropriate angst and tension to be a fulfilling slow burn. And then the relationship escalated rather quickly.

Personally, I wish the story was told from Buffy’s pov. She’s a burnt out stay at home mom trying to figure out what she wants her career to look like after stepping back from a successful political artist career. There was so much there boiling beneath the surface that wasn’t explored, but I would love a deeper look.

I loved this book! This is a queer book that has non binary and trans main characters. I found all the characters in this book so lovable. Charlie is a non binary person who is dealing with burnout. They end up going on a work trip but end up getting snowed in with Buffy and Hayden. Hayden is a trans man and Buffy is a bisexual woman and they have a daughter named Rainbow. Charlie develops feelings for both Hayden and Buffy. I loved the character development Charlie went through in the book.
Highly recommend.

4 / 5 stars !!

firstly, thanks to netgalley & harpercollins publishers for giving me this arc in exchange for an honest review.

this book was honestly so warm and cozy feeling, i enjoyed it thoroughly, and the various forms of poc & queer representation between the characters was so amazing to see, a poc bi woman, a plus size trans man, a nonbinary mc, etc! the very respectful way that the spicy scenes were written was also so amazing to me, because there's not much representation out there for queer relationships, especially trans, in situations like that, so i truly loved how respectfully and well written those moments were. there are not many books that tackle polyamory in a positive light, and the way that this book showed it justice and made it truly so loving was beyond beautiful to me. i adored this book very much!

This one has all the found family vibes, a queer polyamorous romance, crazy pets, an adorable kiddo, and is a super charming and relatable story of being burned out and wishing for a “normal” family - but also realizing what it truly mean to feel “at home.” It’s got small-town feels, and a fun snowed-in force proximity trope - and I really enjoyed it.

It took a bit for me to get into this one at first - the first half was really slow, and I would have much preferred more of the second half antics.... because the second half more than made up for the slow start and I can't wait to read what Markus writes next!

I so enjoyed Really Cute People!

I loved how we got a sense of who Charlie was before they met Buffy and Hayden, their comfort in being assimilated into their family, and their confusion about both hitting on them.

It was a "really cute" romance about the possibility of healthy polyamory and making queer families.

Bonus points for at least one sexy fat belly! So I can count it as fat-positive as well, with no implicit or explicit anti-fat bias.

I was already on the verge of bursting into tears. Charlie's responsible queer who never is quite sure where they fit in was just SO relatable and lovely and just SO MUCH. And then I hit "If someplace is where you're really supposed to go, you'll end up back there. Until then, there's no harm in taking a break to make sure it's what works for you." and I just started full-on sobbing. Apparently this was exactly the book that I needed to read at this point in my life. <333333

(Friends, the romance is great, the found family is A++, and if you've ever attempted to live in a communal queer situation, the breakup of Hillside is just to give you ALL of the flashbacks in ways both good and bad. But mostly I just need you all to know that I NEEDED CHARLIE TO BE HAPPY, BECAUSE READING ABOUT THEM WAS KINDA LIKE READING ABOUT MYSELF. And then they WERE and it was a little bit healing, I'm not even going to lie.)

(This is a review of a free advanced copy of this book that I was given in exchange for an honest review.)

This is a really good found family story full of wonderful queer characters.

Charlie Dee is sent on a work trip but gets trapped at their rental with the homeowners. Buffy and Hayden and their daughter are not what Charlie expects, but the dynamic might be exactly what they need.

I love the cast of characters and the various representation. Charlie is nonbinary, Buffy is bi, and Hayden is trans. I relate so much to Charlie's social feelings. The work indecision felt forced, like Charlie already knew what they wanted but was indecisive for the sake of it. Most of the book was enjoyable though.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

This was a little too wish fulfillment to hold my interest, especially for the first half—it was obvious what Charlie would see in the complex, intriguing Hawthornes, but the character of Charlie just wasn't very fleshed out in turn, and I wasn't sure what the Hawthornes were meant to see in them. It kind of seemed like they were built to be a general purpose reader projection/stand-in. The fact that Charlie's character, history, and body were never described in a way that would reveal anything about their assigned birth gender was really cool, but that seemed to come with a general lack of exploration of the character—they seemed to exist purely within a 2 year period in which they were going through a social and professional slump—just made them not very interesting. But the Hawthornes were plenty interesting, and it's easy to root for everybody's happiness.

This book is unapologetically queer and androgynous, very clearly experiencing the extremes of queer identity. This is not a queer romance for general audiences, but for niches within the queer community– and I do respect that balls to the wall commitment.

A fun, campy romance. Not my favorite, but a standard and good romance.