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A review by jmbq_reads
How to Win a Breakup: A Novel by Farah Heron
4.0
After her boyfriend Devin breaks up with her at the end of their next-to-last year of high school, Samaya spends her summer moving from heartbreak to getting her life back on track and enjoying her online gaming with her new gaming buddy, LostAxis, Once school starts, though, her parents want Sam to focus on studies, building her leadership resume for college applications, and catching up her volunteer hours. Unfortunately, the school's gossip mill/Whispers Instagram account brings her breakup back to the fore when Devin starts dating a mutual friend, implying he might "win" their breakup.
Sam makes the rash decision to let her friends doctor a photo from LostAxis to imply that Sam has moved on, but when her first day at her volunteer shift at the local family shelter introduces her to her new volunteer buddy Daniel, she realizes that Daniel matches the young man in the photo -- but Daniel doesn't play online games and can't be LostAxis himself. Angry at being catfished by someone she trusted, Sam persuades Daniel to pretend they're dating so she can win the breakup over social media.
I really wasn't sure if this book was for me because the idea of "winning" a breakup seems so petty to me. I get that it's probably a pervasive attitude toward high school relationships, but it still had an ick factor that I didn't think I would get past. However, Heron is skilled at taking situations like this and characters you might want to shake and turning them into well-crafted growth arcs and relatable people who learn from their mistakes. Sam makes a lot of dubious choices in this book, but she has excellent friends (Cass and, later, Daniel) willing to call her out in a loving way and to show her how to see her own worth. (Shoutout to Cass, a nonbinary character with depth and a good growth arc of their own.) Daniel is a delightful foil to Sam's serious, nerdy nature, and I really appreciated how his character had room to express different emotions, reveal difficult parts of his past, and find the strength to move forward.
High school friendships and relationships can be fraught with baggage at the best of times and backstabbing at the worst, and Heron brilliantly creates the tangle of drama here and unravels it slowly for a satisfying happy ending. 4 stars.
Read this if you love: gamer girls, women in STEM, social media drama, thriving after a breakup, fake dating, baking the blues away, pi pie, hockey heroes, being true to yourself
Thank you, Skyscape and NetGalley, for providing an eARC of this book. Opinions expressed here are solely my own.
Sam makes the rash decision to let her friends doctor a photo from LostAxis to imply that Sam has moved on, but when her first day at her volunteer shift at the local family shelter introduces her to her new volunteer buddy Daniel, she realizes that Daniel matches the young man in the photo -- but Daniel doesn't play online games and can't be LostAxis himself. Angry at being catfished by someone she trusted, Sam persuades Daniel to pretend they're dating so she can win the breakup over social media.
I really wasn't sure if this book was for me because the idea of "winning" a breakup seems so petty to me. I get that it's probably a pervasive attitude toward high school relationships, but it still had an ick factor that I didn't think I would get past. However, Heron is skilled at taking situations like this and characters you might want to shake and turning them into well-crafted growth arcs and relatable people who learn from their mistakes. Sam makes a lot of dubious choices in this book, but she has excellent friends (Cass and, later, Daniel) willing to call her out in a loving way and to show her how to see her own worth. (Shoutout to Cass, a nonbinary character with depth and a good growth arc of their own.) Daniel is a delightful foil to Sam's serious, nerdy nature, and I really appreciated how his character had room to express different emotions, reveal difficult parts of his past, and find the strength to move forward.
High school friendships and relationships can be fraught with baggage at the best of times and backstabbing at the worst, and Heron brilliantly creates the tangle of drama here and unravels it slowly for a satisfying happy ending. 4 stars.
Read this if you love: gamer girls, women in STEM, social media drama, thriving after a breakup, fake dating, baking the blues away, pi pie, hockey heroes, being true to yourself
Thank you, Skyscape and NetGalley, for providing an eARC of this book. Opinions expressed here are solely my own.