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Verdict: A tender butch/femme wedding romance with the rare distinction of a schizophrenic heroine written with care, held back by an instant-love start and a “rom-com” label that undersells how heavy the second half gets.
Best for: Readers who want a soft-spoken butch mechanic, a femme who shows up for her, and mental-health representation handled without condescension, and who can forgive a fast fall and a wedding plot that tips into farce.
Heat level: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — no romance.io band; I Heart SapphFic files it as “Extra Spicy”)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.9/5 — a 4.35 Goodreads average across 211 ratings, most of them from the author’s launch-week readership)
Tropes: Butch/femme, opposites attract, meet-cute roadside rescue, instalove, engaged couple, wedding from hell, disapproving families, us against the world, mental illness representation, disaster dog.
Against All Odds by Cara Malone is a self-published standalone contemporary lesbian romance, billed as a romantic comedy and set in a small town in the American Northeast — and the collision at its centre is Sage, a quiet butch mechanic who has lived with schizophrenia for years and never expected anyone to choose her, getting engaged to Rosalie, a bright, curious local journalist, and then discovering that her mother, Rosalie’s absent father and one terrifying wedding planner all have opinions about it.
It holds a 4.35 average across 211 Goodreads ratings, and 84% of them are four or five stars. That looks like near-consensus. Read the reviews, though, and a real argument sits underneath — about what kind of book this is, and whether the comedy and the illness belong in the same one. That argument is the thing worth understanding before you start.
What Is Against All Odds About?
Against All Odds is a butch/femme romance first and a wedding comedy second, and the order matters. Small-town romance usually means found family; here it means the opposite — family that is a little too present. Sage still lives with her parents when the book opens, and her mother is not the type to stay out of things. The wedding plot, with a novice planner named Stella steering it wildly off course, supplies the farce. The illness supplies the stakes.
Sage is the book’s centre of gravity: self-employed, good with engines, awkward in conversation, and so used to managing her diagnosis alone that she has half given up on love. Rosalie arrives with her own baggage — readers note an alcoholic father and an absentee mother — and a habit of meeting hard things head-on, which is how she responds when Sage tells her about the schizophrenia. The two are built as opposites, and the book’s question is whether the love between them is sturdier than everything pressing in from outside.
What Makes This Butch/Femme Rom-Com Work
- The mental-health representation: The most-praised element by a distance. At least two readers say it is the first romance they have read with a schizophrenic lead, and Amazon’s own review summary names mental health as the top theme.
- Sage as a soft butch: Small, gentle and insecure rather than stoic. One reviewer notes that her soft demeanour hides real fear about her health, and that Rosalie simply sees a warm, talented woman.
- Rosalie’s support: Readers are moved by how completely she educates herself and stays, and by the articles she writes about how emergency services treat patients like Sage.
- The comic set pieces: A family food fight at the wedding tasting and Stella, the planner from hell, are the scenes readers quote back. The rom-com engine does run.
- Bear the dog: Clumsy, untrained and beloved. More than one reader says the dog feels like a real character rather than a prop.
Book Synopsis
Rosalie is on her way to a first date when her almost-new car dies on the shoulder of a busy highway. The woman who pulls over is not her date. It is Sage, a local mechanic who doesn’t say much — and by the time the car is sorted, Rosalie has missed the date entirely and is much more interested in the stranger who stopped. She asks Sage out to say thank you. Sage, who has spent years assuming nobody would ever look twice, says yes.
It moves quickly after that. Sage tells Rosalie about her schizophrenia early, and instead of leaving, Rosalie starts reading everything she can find. There is a museum date inside a whale, a dog with no manners, a shared home, and then a ring. For Sage, who has watched her own odds shrink for a decade, getting engaged feels like winning something she never entered.
Then the wedding starts to happen to them. Sage’s mother has plans. Rosalie’s father is a gap she has never quite filled. The planner they hire has a vision that belongs to nobody but herself, and the tasting ends in a food fight. Money gets tight, Sage works harder to pay for a day she didn’t design, and the pressure begins to land exactly where she is most careful. Every person around them seems to have a reason the wedding shouldn’t go ahead. The question is whether Sage can hold on to the one reason it should.
My Review
The best thing here is Sage, and I want to say that plainly. A butch lead with schizophrenia, written as a whole person rather than a diagnosis — someone who runs her own business, manages her medication, loves her dog and has quietly decided the romance part of life isn’t for her — is something the genre almost never offers. Readers keep using the words care, compassion and sensitivity, and the review record backs them: nobody I found accuses the book of treating the illness as a joke, even among its critics.
The second strength is how the book lets Rosalie love her. She does not tolerate the diagnosis; she learns it, and the plot turns her journalism toward the way emergency services handle patients in crisis. That gives the romance a spine beyond chemistry. One reviewer who opens with her own content warnings says the heavy material is never the butt of the joke, and that is the right summary of the balance Malone is attempting.
Where it struggles is speed and tone. The most repeated reservation in the reviews is that the relationship is instant — readers call it an “instant love story” approvingly and “insta-love” critically, but they agree on the fact. One two-star reviewer says key things, including the illness, are told rather than shown until the hospital scenes arrive. The wedding circus is the second theme: another reader found the extravaganza too much, and a third, who normally enjoys Malone, felt the whole thing played as a farce that didn’t work. One reader also found a recurring thread about what Rosalie should call Sage’s mother off-putting. Those are minority voices on a 4.35 book, but they point at the same seam.
One expectation to reset: the cover is pastel and the subtitle says romantic comedy, and readers repeatedly say that is only half true. The first half is light; the second goes, as one put it, “sideways,” with medication, a hospital and real heartbreak. If the rom-com label is what drew you, calibrate; if a mental-health storyline is what worried you, relax — this is a gentle hand on a heavy subject.
My honest note: A four-star heart with a three-and-a-half-star structure — Sage is a heroine worth meeting, and the wedding chaos around her is louder than it needs to be. If you want a romance that treats serious mental illness with warmth and ends happily, this is one of the few. If you need a slow build or a purely light read, look elsewhere.
| Element | In Against All Odds |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Sage & Rosalie — butch mechanic with schizophrenia and femme journalist, meet-cute to engagement |
| Core tropes | Butch/femme, opposites attract, instalove, wedding planning, disapproving families, us against the world |
| Setting | A small town in the American Northeast — a garage, a shared home and one very bad wedding tasting |
| Heat level | 4/5 — explicit, per I Heart SapphFic; no romance.io band |
| Series | Standalone — complete story, HEA, no cliffhanger |
| Content notes | Schizophrenia and a medication crisis, hospitalisation, ableism, parental alcoholism and absence, family conflict, explicit sexual content |
How Spicy Is Against All Odds?
A 4/5, and that number is derived rather than sourced from romance.io. Its page for the book carries a 4.33 average from six ratings but no steam level at all, so the band here comes from two places: I Heart SapphFic, which catalogues it in its top “Extra Spicy” tier and tags sex toys, and reader reports — one launch reviewer sums the book up as fast, funny and hot. That puts it in explicit open-door territory rather than fade-to-black, though the heat is not what readers talk about; almost nobody mentions it beyond a passing word.
The element worth knowing in advance is not sexual: the mental-health storyline turns serious in the back half, with a medication crisis and a hospital stay, and one reader who wanted a comedy found that jarring. No reviewer I found flags anything else on the page. For contemporary romance in the same heat band, D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding and Touch the Sky sit at the same level.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you want a gentle butch heroine who is allowed to be scared, you value mental-health representation that treats the illness with respect, you enjoy chaotic wedding comedy and meddling families, and you like a fast, emotional read with a guaranteed happy ending.
You may want to skip it if: instalove breaks a romance for you, you find comedy and serious illness an uncomfortable mix, farce and over-the-top side characters wear on you quickly, or you picked it up expecting a light, low-stakes rom-com all the way through.
In short: a warm, brave choice of heroine inside a noisier book than she needs, and still one of the kinder portrayals of schizophrenia in the genre.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (September 2026)
There is no viral moment behind this book and no trade or blog reviews to speak of — The Lesbian Review carried a paid launch listing, not a review, and I found no Publishers Weekly, Kirkus or blog coverage. What it has instead is Cara Malone’s own readership. The shape of the Goodreads reviews makes that obvious: well over half were posted within two weeks of the July 14, 2023 release, at least one is marked as an advance copy, and several open by comparing it to her other books — “her best to date,” “the writing just gets better.” That loyal base explains the high averages on a modest count: 4.35 across 211 Goodreads ratings and 4.0 across eight StoryGraph reviews, where the top moods are emotional, lighthearted and fast-paced. The self-published audiobook followed in October 2023, narrated by Rowan Marlowe and running 5 hours 38 minutes, which gives the book a second route to new readers.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The mental-health representation, first and most consistently — “sensitive,” “care” and “compassion” recur across independent reviews, and at least two readers say it is the first book they have read with a schizophrenic lead. Amazon’s review summary counts mental health as the most-mentioned topic alongside the romance itself. Second, the couple: readers call them sweet and dynamic, and Rosalie’s willingness to learn is singled out again and again. Third, humour — the wedding tasting food fight and Stella the planner draw the laughs, and one reader praises how the book balances heavy topics and light ones without mocking the heavy. Bear the dog has a small fan club of his own.
What readers argue about and complain about: The tone, above everything. Several readers who came for a rom-com note that it is only partly one, and they disagree about whether the mix works — most say it does, while one two-star reviewer says comedy about mental illness, warring families and an untrained dog is “more of nightmare” than a laugh. Second: speed. The romance is instant by the reviewers’ own description; some say it still doesn’t feel rushed, others found it underdeveloped, with the illness told rather than shown until it becomes the plot. Third: the wedding itself — one reader found the extravaganza too much, and another says the direction of the breakdown was visible well in advance. Beyond that, single-reader notes on a repeated “calling your mother Mom” thread and on the name Rose, which one reviewer felt carried unfortunate associations.
The standalone question worth asking first: Against All Odds stands alone. It needs no prior book and leaves nothing hanging — readers confirm the happy ending, and one mentions a satisfying close with the wedding delivered. If you want more Malone afterwards, the numbers point in a clear direction: her most-read book, The Glow Up, sits at 4.06 across 1,256 ratings and Fixer Upper at 3.94 across 880, both below this one, while her Fox County Forensics romantic suspense series climbs as it goes, with Lady Killer (book 5) at 4.38. This is one of her quieter titles and one of her better-rated.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Against All Odds a butch/femme romance?
Yes. The author’s own description calls Sage a butch woman, and readers describe the pairing as butch meets femme: Sage is a butch mechanic and Rosalie a feminine journalist.
How spicy is Against All Odds?
A 4/5. romance.io has not assigned it a steam level, but I Heart SapphFic lists it as “Extra Spicy” and readers describe it as hot. Expect explicit open-door scenes, though the heat is not the book’s focus.
Does Against All Odds have a happy ending?
Yes. Sage and Rosalie get their HEA, and readers describe the ending as satisfying. The road there includes a serious mental-health crisis, so it is not a smooth ride.
Is Against All Odds really a romantic comedy?
Partly. The first half and the wedding scenes are comic, but readers repeatedly note that the second half turns heavy, with medication, a hospital stay and genuine heartbreak. Treat it as a romance with comic scenes rather than a pure rom-com.
Is there an audiobook?
Yes. The audiobook is narrated by Rowan Marlowe and runs 5 hours 38 minutes; it was released in October 2023 through Audible and Amazon.
If You Loved Against All Odds, Read These Next
For another butch-and-femme wedding comedy where the planning goes spectacularly wrong, D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding is the closest match in premise and heat. If Sage’s gentleness is what won you over, Wrong Number, Right Woman gives you a soft butch lead with a slower, steadier build. And for a romance that also takes health, money and real life seriously around a shy butch heroine, Get It Right covers similar emotional ground in novella form.
For more in this register, browse our butch lesbian romance guide or the full Book Reviews collection.
The Bottom Line
Against All Odds is a romance that picks a hard subject and treats it kindly. Sage is a butch heroine the genre rarely writes, Rosalie’s support is the emotional heart of the book, and the wedding chaos gives it genuine laughs. It is also instant in its romance, louder than it needs to be in its farce, and sold as a lighter book than it is. Whether that trade works depends on what you want from a rom-com — but if you want mental-health representation handled with care and a couple who earn their happy ending, it is worth the read. Check Against All Odds on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Against All Odds ranks as a warm, representation-forward indie butch/femme romance — compassionate and genuinely rare in its heroine, held back by instalove and tonal whiplash, and best approached for Sage and Rosalie rather than for the comedy.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ 4.35 average across 211 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ Mental-health rep praised across reviews
- ✓ Launch-week readership inflates a small sample
Romance ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ Roadside meet-cute readers remember
- ✓ Rosalie’s support carries the relationship
- ✓ Couple called sweet and dynamic
- ✓ Instalove by the reviewers’ own account
Characters ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ Schizophrenic butch lead rarely seen
- ✓ Rosalie’s own family baggage
- ✓ Bear the dog reads as a character
- ✓ One critic calls the leads underdeveloped
Writing ★★★★☆ 3.6/5
- ✓ Fast-paced by StoryGraph consensus
- ✓ Comic set pieces land for most
- ✓ Heavy topics never the punchline
- ✓ Told rather than shown, per critics
Emotional Impact ★★★★☆ 4.2/5
- ✓ “Emotional” is StoryGraph’s top mood
- ✓ Medication crisis carries real weight
- ✓ Readers report laughs and tears
- ✓ Some found the tone shift jarring
Heat Level ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ “Extra Spicy” on I Heart SapphFic
- ✓ Readers describe it as hot
- ✓ Explicit, open-door scenes
- ✓ No romance.io steam band assigned
Ending ★★★★☆ 4.1/5
- ✓ HEA confirmed by multiple readers
- ✓ Standalone, no cliffhanger
- ✓ Wedding plot pays off
- ✓ Breakdown visible well in advance
Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 3.7/5
- ✓ Launch reviewer planned a reread
- ✓ 5h 38m audiobook for a second pass
- ✓ 270 pages, quick to revisit
- ✓ Farce may wear thin second time
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