Recs for serious IICHY hangover (details below)

Tried this yesterday but it was removed as it wasn’t detailed enough. In the past I’ve looked at similar rec request posts in this sub but ended up DNFing several books. Hoping to find something more tailored to what I liked about it. Some spoilers for IICHY ahead

  • “older” main characters - college and younger is hard for me to get into unless it’s a fantasy romance.
  • obsessive, controlling mmc that also wants to be sweet - oh Caleb you didn’t want to hurt her but also you didddd and loved it
  • motivated, driven main characters - even if it’s not in a career I love characters with drive, even if it stems from unhealthy places
  • breaking down to build back up - Caleb really made her talk through her worst insecurities and made her sob only to replace them with what he would’ve done and held her while she cried 🥲
  • gifts, grand gestures, just totally all in mmc - this is obviously complicated in the Caleb case but the necklace, the eventual ending events (not the stairs lol the events surrounding), ugh I loved
  • unwavering support for fmc even if it looks funny in their own special way lol. Like at the end of the day Caleb thought Orla was the smartest most beautiful woman, would help her get whatever job she wanted, even if it was no job.
  • praise!!
  • major plus if the writing captures mundane details of the day to day - the rides on the T, coffee runs, made it come to life
  • plus if fmc has issues like depression and/or anxiety- not required though
  • plus if it’s well edited cause that’s the only thing that hurt my soul about IICHY. I come from a work background similar to consulting, which is why those lack of edits really killed me lol. My direct reports would’ve had a lot of edits from me in return 🤪 But clearly I loved it enough that I overlooked it.

Thanks in advance!

Oh! I tried gods of malice and DNF’d soo quickly. That college one where the girl is called Story- I can’t find the title in my kindle. Haunting Adeline was fine- 3 stars from me. Lights Out was cute but like I want an actually dark romance not just a dark setting and knife play 🤧 Feathers so Vicious was good but felt lacking in a lot of depth where the plot could’ve really delved deeper.