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A review by dansydreads
How to Win a Breakup: A Novel by Farah Heron
4.0
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC! I love a good messy romance.
Samaya is a high school senior trying to save face as the new school year starts. She has to deal with frenemies, gossip, misogyny, and of course her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend (who, naturally, is one of the aforementioned frenemies). The solution? A fake boyfriend. Daniel all but falls into her lap at her new volunteer gig and agrees to help her win the breakup.
Throw She’s All That, Never Have I Ever, and a little bit of One Of Us Is Lying together and this is what you get. The gamer-girl academic needs her new pastry chef/hockey player fake-boyfriend to pass as a gamer nerd to try to trick the schools gossip instagram account into believing that their relationship is real.
I liked how neurotic Samaya is. Her worries felt very real in terms of what seventeen year olds go through, especially those who are held to higher standards not only by their parents but by themselves as well. I also liked the friendships in this book, including the frenemies, especially because the frenemies served an actual purpose to the plot and not just to create drama.
This book went deeper than just a fake dating romance. It touched on racism in ways that were effective but not in-your-face or obviously added to check a box. The LGBTQIA+ characters had substance and depth and didn’t serve as just a character trope - Cass is the friend we should all strive to be! And the conversations around homelessness and Samaya’s reflection on what it means to be housed should give readers something to think about.
My only real problem with this book is that even though I know it’s YA and told in first person, the occasional acronym like LOL and IRL bugged me. It would be one thing if they were written in one of the text messages, but they were included in the narrative and I don’t think they belong there.
Overall I enjoyed this book! It was pretty cute, pretty quick, and worth it!
Samaya is a high school senior trying to save face as the new school year starts. She has to deal with frenemies, gossip, misogyny, and of course her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend (who, naturally, is one of the aforementioned frenemies). The solution? A fake boyfriend. Daniel all but falls into her lap at her new volunteer gig and agrees to help her win the breakup.
Throw She’s All That, Never Have I Ever, and a little bit of One Of Us Is Lying together and this is what you get. The gamer-girl academic needs her new pastry chef/hockey player fake-boyfriend to pass as a gamer nerd to try to trick the schools gossip instagram account into believing that their relationship is real.
I liked how neurotic Samaya is. Her worries felt very real in terms of what seventeen year olds go through, especially those who are held to higher standards not only by their parents but by themselves as well. I also liked the friendships in this book, including the frenemies, especially because the frenemies served an actual purpose to the plot and not just to create drama.
This book went deeper than just a fake dating romance. It touched on racism in ways that were effective but not in-your-face or obviously added to check a box. The LGBTQIA+ characters had substance and depth and didn’t serve as just a character trope - Cass is the friend we should all strive to be! And the conversations around homelessness and Samaya’s reflection on what it means to be housed should give readers something to think about.
My only real problem with this book is that even though I know it’s YA and told in first person, the occasional acronym like LOL and IRL bugged me. It would be one thing if they were written in one of the text messages, but they were included in the narrative and I don’t think they belong there.
Overall I enjoyed this book! It was pretty cute, pretty quick, and worth it!