Sweetbitter Song: A Novel

First note I should make is that while I was broadly aware of Penelope's story, I had no knowledge of Melantho, so I have no thoughts on her being aged up or whatever.

At first I was intrigued by Penelope. And I enjoyed some aspects of her relationship with Penelope. Also the handmaids. But the overall book let me down. Definite pacing problems, with repeated cycles of Melantho getting being sad because Penelope does a surface-level mean thing that was obviously done for Melantho's benefit. Melantho... did not seem to be able to recognize patterns.
And that was the saggy middle... Honestly, I don't know how you'd fill in 20 years of "nothing happened" and make it interesting, but it didn't happen here.

There were a few nuggets in there of will they/won't they (or more realistically when/how will they) which I enjoyed. They kept the book worth reading.

And then men show up and I had absolutely no interest in whatever foolishness that was. I mean, I was a little excited to get to the end, but the way those characters interacted with each other was painful.