Great crime noir, cat, mouse chase! Loved the characters, ending felt a little rushed, but I liked the way it did end. I had already planned out a different ending so it was a nice little curve ball to go in the opposite direction.

Cigarette Lemonade is a quick and thrilling novella filled with crime, torture, and death. I loved the setting of this story and the vivid action sequences, The adrenaline was pumping the more I read. It left me wanting more each chapter.

Bruler did a fantastic job with the writing and pace of this book, as well as creating a simple yet compelling chemistry between the two main characters Dizzie and Smoak. Dizzie is a such a girlboss. Personally, her character was more intriguing to me from the get go compared to Smoak. This was a fun and exciting read.

** spoiler alert ** There were a lot of things I liked, but there were also quite a few things that were not for me.

Minor spoilers ahead.

Content warnings: gun violence, drug use, dead naming, transphobic slurs, sex, pornography

The book is about Dizzie and Smoak, who are thrown into a wild world of drugs, guns, and hitmen. It's a violent book, much more than I had anticipated.

The main plot is really fun and moves quickly. The two main characters are thrown into a world that feel straight out of a thriller and seems full and vibrant. I was very invested in the main plot and read the book in one sitting. It seemed to be a cozy world where the two main characters were very different yet just clicked with each other.

However, there were a couple of things that didn't work for me and I think took away from the plot and the world that the author created.

There was a scene between the two characters where a soft-core porn is vividly described followed by a couple of sexual encounters that came out of nowhere and was really awkward to read. It felt very clinical and didn't have the "spice" that a lot of readers want. It also just ended. There was no mention of it again. I'm note sure why that entire chapter was in the story.

One of the main characters is Dizzie, and I am not quite sure why she was made trans. There are a few times where other characters misgender her, use her dead name (but the author never does!), and use transphobic slurs. I found that to be very distracting from the main plot, which was quite captivating.

Overall, I did enjoy it, but a few things were too distracting to love the book. However, I do recommend it for a quick, cozy, high-paced read.

Content and trigger warnings: gratuitous blood/murder, gratuitous sexual imagery, explicit homophobic slurs, implicit transphobia

I love Dizzie’s character, I love the exploration of a trans MC who is a totally BAMF. Dizzie’s firecracker personality shines through and especially in compliment to Smoak who is more stoic. I thought Smoak was snarky with a quick tongue, and I enjoyed his dialogue a lot. The two MCs are definitely very likable on their own right and as partners.

Unfortunately, I found the plot to be lacking. There isn’t enough time to breathe from one event to the next, so it reads more like a travelogue from point A to B. This book doesn’t do a great job of maintaining tension throughout the story. Dizzie and Smoak and their adventure is very akin to a buddy cop story, but the events taking place don’t feel tense or exciting. If new characters were introduced, their impact would be neutralized very quickly. Things seem to go smoothly for them every single time, which reads more as plot armor.

I also thought the dialogue and scene break-up was very aimless. At times, it felt like chapters were too short and filled with scenes that really didn’t add to the overall plot line or character development. Same with the dialogue; there were times I would read it and wonder what the author was trying to accomplish with some of the lines. Even the way the book is written is a little monotonous; paragraphs would sometimes be a string of short, basic subject-verb-object sentences back to back, with no variation in sentence complexity, which gave the book a very bland rhythm.

I also wasn’t really pleased with some of the relationship progression choices in this story and felt it was out of character in terms of chemistry.

Lastly, I found the ending to be extremely unsatisfying and also far too abrupt.

Overall, while I love the treatment of Dizzie as a trans MC and love the representation in this book, I felt that the story was a little uneven. Yes, Dizzie is a BAMF, but there wasn't a lot of obstacles in her path so we don't really get to see her shine the way I wanted her to.

Cigarette Lemonade is a novella, about 95 pages, of drug dealing, torture, killing mystery.

In all its little glory, it was a decent book. Intriguing enough to keep you reading, enough detail to keep you into the characters, enough twists to keep you wanting more. Unfortunately the end was really a let down.

Dizzie and Smoak are the most untypical drug mules possible. It’s almost like they both accidentally ended up in this line of work. I really liked their dynamic together, and how well the story flowed through them. In the end, I wanted more, and a different ending.

An excellent ARC!

Cigarette Lemonade is a beautifully vivid novella. Bruler has an immaculate writing sense and establishes a setting without it being lost in chunks of exposition. There is a purposeful sense of mystery, and the characters are decently fleshed out throughout the novella.

This story was engaging, addictive, and very neatly presented. That being said, I ultimately rated Cigarette Lemonade 4.5 stars. While I adore the concept of an open ending for this novella, I couldn't shake the feeling that the conclusion presented was slightly rushed and detached from the tone of the majority of the novella. It fell flat, and it might have to do with the pacing of the final scene. It felt slightly "he did/she did/done."

That aside, this book was thrilling, and I really, really LOVED it. I'm absolutely looking forward to reading Bruler's other writings, and I can't wait to see the success of this book when it is officially released.

The first thing that caught me about this novel was the title. One of my best friends sent me a list of books in order of when she’d be reading them and this was on it. Immediately, I was like… yo… what is that?

Anyway, colour me curious. I got it. I read it in a few hours and when I tell you that I absolutely devoured this novella… I mean it. As a non-binary person who grew up in South Carolina, I was immediately attached to Dizzie. Despite the clothing she’s in and the makeup she wears, people still perceive her as the gender she was assigned at birth and that’s something I can relate to directly. I found myself admiring her grit and determination (especially in the scene with the whole one free pass thing; she’s such a badass and I think I’ve told my friends I would die for her [a fictional character, mind you] numerous times since reading that scene).

The ending left me feeling a little snuffed with how abruptly it ends but I think this is more of me wanting to see more of what happens to Dizzie. She’s my age, right, and I’m young… which means she has an entire life ahead of her. Presumably, anyway. Mayhaps. I want to know more about Dizzie and where she takes herself after the end of the novella, but I suppose that’s the beauty of how it ended. It’s all up to interpretation.

Overall, I’m giving this a solid 4.5 stars, rounded down for GR and exact for TSG. This was a super fun and fast-paced read, and I definitely plan on checking out more of de Brueler’s work in the future.