Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.23 AVERAGE
3.23 AVERAGE
I wanted to like This Love Story Will Self-Destruct far more than I actually ended up liking it. I was drawn to it because Leslie Cohen was described as being a Nora Ephron-esque writer and I love Nora Ephron's rom-coms. However, I felt This Love Story Will Self-Destruct was missing that magical spark all of Nora's movies are infused with.
This Love Story Will Self-Destruct tells the story of Eve and Ben as they navigate the end of college and their twenties together. The pair starts out as mere acquaintances who then transition into being friends and eventually lovers. But their relationship isn't perfect and it's filled with many ups and downs that the reader gets to experience. Set in New York, the story is also deals with tough subject matter like losing loved ones in 9/11 and dealing with the guilt of surviving 9/11. I felt Leslie Cohen handled this subject matter with great care and I really appreciated the role it played in Eve and Ben's story.
Leslie Cohen also did a great job building the timeline for this book and tying all the plot points together. Unfortunately, I never felt truly invested in the characters. Eve and Ben aren't unlikable characters by any means, but they're just not exactly my cup of tea. I applaud Leslie Cohen for making Eve and Ben so realistic, but I just didn't agree with most of their actions and that plays a big role in my enjoyment of a book. I know other readers might feel differently, and thus enjoy the book more than myself.
This Love Story Will Self-Destruct tells the story of Eve and Ben as they navigate the end of college and their twenties together. The pair starts out as mere acquaintances who then transition into being friends and eventually lovers. But their relationship isn't perfect and it's filled with many ups and downs that the reader gets to experience. Set in New York, the story is also deals with tough subject matter like losing loved ones in 9/11 and dealing with the guilt of surviving 9/11. I felt Leslie Cohen handled this subject matter with great care and I really appreciated the role it played in Eve and Ben's story.
Leslie Cohen also did a great job building the timeline for this book and tying all the plot points together. Unfortunately, I never felt truly invested in the characters. Eve and Ben aren't unlikable characters by any means, but they're just not exactly my cup of tea. I applaud Leslie Cohen for making Eve and Ben so realistic, but I just didn't agree with most of their actions and that plays a big role in my enjoyment of a book. I know other readers might feel differently, and thus enjoy the book more than myself.
4.5 Stars
Have you ever read a book and been left wondering how it felt like absolutely nothing happened but somehow SO much happened at the same time? This is that book for me.
It read sort of like a diary where you’ll learn everything about Ben and Eve’s lives and how they missed each other for so long but crossed paths so often. You’ll learn of Eve’s struggle with the death of her mom and her absent father and her inability to trust in anything good.
It’s mentioned early on that Ben’s friends think that he is boring and for a majority of the book I didn’t see it. I just saw him as steady, calm and level-headed. Then as we watch as Eve’s emotions start to get the best of her, Ben does seem to come across as unfazed, emotionless and yes, boring. When things blow up and Eve becomes her own worst enemy, I saw that Ben does have emotions, but he doesn’t express them outwardly.
He is the calm to Eve’s storm.
Even in the end when you’d expect a certain excited reaction to something Eve casually acknowledges he is steady and calm. At first I was disappointed because who doesn’t want a big show of emotion, but that’s when I hit me. His reaction was more real than anything I’ve become accustomed to in Fiction, but exactly what I witness first hand in real life. Proving that true love and romance isn’t always show-boating and loud, sometimes calm and steady is the best reaction of them all.
*I received an ARC from NetGalley for voluntary review
Have you ever read a book and been left wondering how it felt like absolutely nothing happened but somehow SO much happened at the same time? This is that book for me.
It read sort of like a diary where you’ll learn everything about Ben and Eve’s lives and how they missed each other for so long but crossed paths so often. You’ll learn of Eve’s struggle with the death of her mom and her absent father and her inability to trust in anything good.
It’s mentioned early on that Ben’s friends think that he is boring and for a majority of the book I didn’t see it. I just saw him as steady, calm and level-headed. Then as we watch as Eve’s emotions start to get the best of her, Ben does seem to come across as unfazed, emotionless and yes, boring. When things blow up and Eve becomes her own worst enemy, I saw that Ben does have emotions, but he doesn’t express them outwardly.
He is the calm to Eve’s storm.
Even in the end when you’d expect a certain excited reaction to something Eve casually acknowledges he is steady and calm. At first I was disappointed because who doesn’t want a big show of emotion, but that’s when I hit me. His reaction was more real than anything I’ve become accustomed to in Fiction, but exactly what I witness first hand in real life. Proving that true love and romance isn’t always show-boating and loud, sometimes calm and steady is the best reaction of them all.
*I received an ARC from NetGalley for voluntary review
While this book has all the bones of the quintessential young love in New York story for which I am a sucker, what really made me love it was the main character’s description of her relationship with her younger sister. Many books and films romanticize such a relationship but I found this description to be the most realistic and relatable I have encountered to this date. I even texted my own younger sister a particularly salient quote from the several pages of musings on the subject. The titular love story at the crux of the novel’s plot was cute too.
i read this book solely for the purpose of adding another book to my reading list. I'm about to start a lengthy series that will take me time to get through, so i needed to read a quick romance novel to add another book into my reading. basically, i skimmed the whole thing. (no shame, no gain.)
this was an okay book. maybe it's my fault but nothing really jumped out to me. i liked the characters (i could relate a lot to eve, and ben was interesting.) i liked the premise but it wasn't anything special. i did like the storytelling and how the plot jumped and how it was written, but i honestly couldn't tell you anything important. i didn't really like the ending, it felt more like the beginning. !!
this was an okay book. maybe it's my fault but nothing really jumped out to me. i liked the characters (i could relate a lot to eve, and ben was interesting.) i liked the premise but it wasn't anything special. i did like the storytelling and how the plot jumped and how it was written, but i honestly couldn't tell you anything important. i didn't really like the ending, it felt more like the beginning. !!
This is a very sweet and lovely story, spiked with sadness. I enjoyed just how real the characters felt. Neurotic. Out of control. Depressed. Yet always deserving of love. We’re all a little messed up, aren’t we? Nobody gets through life unscathed from their past. Life screws us the hell up. Yet we are always deserving of love. Leslie Cohen makes that incontrovertible truth feel real.
4.5 stars
This is about a girl with issues and the boy that falls for her.
That’s really it.
And I loved it.
I found Eve to be oddly relatable, whether I saw a part of myself in her or from the friends I had in college.
And yes, Ben may seem like an idiot for putting up with some of Eve’s antics (especially in the beginning), but guess what?
People are messy.
Relationships are messy.
And life is messy.
My one critique is:
GOOD LORD! CHILL WITH THE USE OF ITALICS!
This is about a girl with issues and the boy that falls for her.
That’s really it.
And I loved it.
I found Eve to be oddly relatable, whether I saw a part of myself in her or from the friends I had in college.
And yes, Ben may seem like an idiot for putting up with some of Eve’s antics (especially in the beginning), but guess what?
People are messy.
Relationships are messy.
And life is messy.
My one critique is:
GOOD LORD! CHILL WITH THE USE OF ITALICS!
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion.
I hated this book. I had to force myself to finish the book. Eve was an intolerable character. She was flighty, selfish and unhappy. I just couldn't root for her.
I hated this book. I had to force myself to finish the book. Eve was an intolerable character. She was flighty, selfish and unhappy. I just couldn't root for her.
3.75 I think. I’m still trying to understand a lot of the actions by these characters! I gushed a lot throughout the book but I yelled at the characters more often. I think the major “problem” in this book was brushed off so easily, I didn’t see much purpose of it. I think it could have been more of a problem or made more prominent. But Eve and Ben had a lot of issues! Not bad issues, but real life ones. They made the characters more relatable which I appreciated.
A cute love story set in New York City. I find the whole Jesse thing too long at the beginning. While he, and the relationship, are important to understand Eve's growth, I wish it would have been kept shorter.
This was a nice story. I enjoyed meeting the characters but I didn't feel the need to stay with them after I finished reading. Sweet but maybe a little forgettable.