How Not to Fall in Love by Jacqueline Firkins

3.54 AVERAGE

living_a_bookworm_life's review against another edition

4.0
"How Not to Fall In Love" by Jacqueline Firkins is a sweet and frustrating story about two best friends who have opposite approaches to love. Harper runs her mother's bridal shop and sees the worst of the wedding industry, while nursing a devastating heartbreak from last summer. This has given her a dark and cynical view of love. Meanwhile, her best friend and next door neighbor Theo throws himself full force into every possible relationship, leading to lots of heartbreak. They decide to offer each other lessons in how to fall (or not fall) in love.

While I was often frustrated with the miscommunication between the characters in the book, I couldn't stop reading it in order to find out what would happen. The story had a few twists I wasn't expecting, and the ending left me smiling. Throughout the book, the two main characters studied vocabulary for the SATs, and their frequent use of large vocabulary words was both funny and interesting. It also lead to an interesting subplot about the meaning of words and how we use or misuse them.

Overall, this book was a fun and fast read, with quirky characters and smart banter. I really enjoyed it and will keep an eye out for other books by the author!
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jdyschmdt's review against another edition

5.0
emotional lighthearted medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
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bookswithbunny's review against another edition

4.0
4.5 Stars

jupiter_01's review against another edition

3.25
funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
I very much appreciated that the characters were allowed to be weird, have niche(ish) hobbies, and be intelligent. I liked that no one was really the bad guy in the romantic situations. The novel showed the difficulties of grappling with your emotions as a young person, and as I've experienced Harper's issues, it felt realistic. Also, wlw couple as parents? Hell yehaw.

I thought the spicier scenes were very sensual and loving and comfortable. The tension was perfect.

FYI, I found this in the adult fiction section of my library, but it's about highschoolers.
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analogdreams92's review against another edition

1.0
This book…I hadn’t realized it was YA when I took it out from the library. It had its cute moments (hardly) but the voices of the characters bothered me. Nothing against the author. I think she’d do amazing with adult romance too…but Theo just had the voice of someone I knew too well and had one hell of a heartbreak with. It was like hearing a lost voice. I should have DNF’d it but I kept going to see if I was right.
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tsundoku_'s review against another edition

3.0
emotional lighthearted medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
Honestly I'm not too sure how I feel about this. Theo was by far the best character in this book. He was so adorably geeky and just not afraid to be himself even if that meant crying while playing the accordion for 6 hours straight. Pippa was a pretty cool character. Felix was alright but he felt too perfect and just like a flat character. To be honest Harper annoyed me for most of the book.  I felt like some of Harper's decisions in this book were a little bit forced and I didn't really like that. It made things uncomfortable because they felt forced and just unnatural. But I think that's supposed to be part of her character development since she is so quick to say she messed everything up in multiple scenes. She acts before thinking but then when the thinking catches up to her she freaks out and then a relationship gets ruined for like a week or more and they just don't talk. This happened on at least 3 occasions and it got kinda old. Kinda like a miscommunication type trope and I didn't like it.
I didn't like Harper and Felix's relationship at all. It felt very surface level to me. They didn't have any real chemistry. Harper and Theo's relationship was better. You could tell they actually loved and cared about each other.


But overall it had some cute moments. The grand gesture at the end was pretty cute. I don't know if I'd recommend this but I'm sure a lot of people would love this. Just not for me

blackveilbeccy's review against another edition

4.25
emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
Some thoughts:

1. Theo! One of my favourite male leads in a story I’ve read recently - a nerdy, LARPing weird kid I absolutely adore. A good deal of my high rating is solely because he’s incredible and I love him.
2. This started off slow for me but I really got sucked into the romance. The heroine was pretty unlikeable in the beginning but by the end I was really rooting for her and for the romance.
3. Did I mention how quirky-geeky-cool Theo is?! Squee!
4. Supporting characters were great. Pippa was really cool - she could have been a manic pixie dream girl but she was actually a genuinely good friend.
5. I really want to read more Theo. Please and thank you.
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varo's review against another edition

4.0
emotional funny hopeful medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
Loved the incorporation of the SAT vocab list to allow both overt and more subtle word play and language use.

Enjoyed that the plot lines weren't totally predictable.
for example, I totally thought Pippa agreed to fake date Theo to make Harper jealous and realise she was in love with him. Having it be messier--Pippa was oblivious and really liked him and Harper has to navigate that relationship too--made it more realistic, relatable, and engaging

_camille_'s review against another edition

4.0
hopeful lighthearted medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
Cute book, was a fun easy read where you are rooting for two different people. Long time friends to lovers. Realized that they should be more than friends. Hates love and doesn't like the stereotypes and drama surrounding it.
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ellabaum's review against another edition

1.75
lighthearted medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes