All Alone with You

Angsty loner Eloise would much rather be spending her time gaming than logging volunteer hours at LifeCare—an elder care service that's at odds with her social anxiety—but that's what her guidance counselor says she has to do if she wants a scholarship to her dream school. Along with fellow volunteer Austin, Eloise resigns herself to weekly visits keeping an old woman company. It's a prospect made much more nerve-wracking (but all the more intriguing) when Eloise learns the old woman in question, Marianne Landis, is the famous former frontwoman of the Laundromats—and that she can be every bit as prickly as Eloise. At first, Eloise is annoyed by Austin's perpetual cheerfulness but eventually she warms to his sunshine-y persona and the two of them become friends outside their shared LifeCare shifts. It's a sweet, slow-burn friendship-turned-romance, and the Seattle setting is fun, with lots of invented locales mixed in with actual places, especially with the music scene tie-ins.