How to End a Love Story

I was scared to read this because i knew the author is adapting Emily Henry's books. Hopefully she does better as a screenwriter than she did as an author. I understand this is her debut, but I believe as a writer of any kind - she even wrote fanfics apparently - you get the gist of a novel and how to properly write it

The first turn off about this book was the way the author consistently changed POVs. I don't mind dual POV, in fact i find them fun and interesting as they often give us both sides but here, in this book, it wasn't chapter by chapter but rather paragraph. We would be reading about Helen then suddenly it would shift to Grant, it was confusing and distracting in a way. I could immediately tell that a screenwriter wrote this. It felt like how you would transfer movie into books.

The second thing was the way Helen treated Grant in the beginning. Helen was aware that it wasn't his fault her sister killed herself but she was utterly rude and condescending. She could have been cordial at the least. We were told that she hated talking to people and crowds, but girl wasn't making the least effort even during room time. I really disliked Helen.

The romance was non-existent, to be fair. This was trauma bonding, there was no connection, no love, bo chemistry. Helen went from hating him, not even thinking about him to having wet dreams about him real quick?!

And what of her feelings with her parents? She finally says what has been bothering her and confronts her parents, and then suddenly shuts down and doesn't bring it up again?

The pacing was all over the place.

And lastly, the thing that really put me off was the third act conflict. I personally despise break up as thurd act conflicts, but more importantly, i hate when they go for months on end not seeing each other and suddenly patch up like nothing ever happened.

Loved it, very satisfying read, but I can't shake that there is some missed opportinuty that keep me from grading it 5 Stars.

I really liked the way the mmc was affacted by their shared trauma but the revelation of his difficulties to the fmc could have been a drama-feeled cathartic and beautul scene and it was not.
same thing goes for the writing room, the revelation of their shared trauma could have been an intersting scene and I was kind of waiting for it during the first half of the book and it never came.

But except this, I really liked this book and I feel like Emily Henry's futures adaptations are in good hands.

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