My Review of 'Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating' by Christina Lauren | Whimsical Soul

⭐2.5/5

This book just wasn't for me.

The ending was just the cherry on top and factored into the two and a half stars that I eventually ended up giving it. I swear if I read the phrase 'blueprint for perfect' one more time, I'm going to lose it. 

It didn't weave the kind of magic that romance novels usually do for me. So, I've been having a rom-com marathon of sorts for a few months now. I get some kick out of reading romance, and it's become my drug, my obsession, my one-true passion that gets me out of bed in the morning. But I think it might be time I moved past it to bigger and better things.

I decided to give this one a try because it had been on my radar for a long time, right since I read Christina Laurens's The Unhoneymooners. Tbh I didn't like that book either, although it had potential, so I just decided to give this one a chance and see what to make of it. After reading all those fantastic reviews on Goodreads, I decided to go for it. But this had almost the same issues that prevented me from liking The Unhoneymooners.

I loved the beginning, the middle, but as soon as this book was almost 70% done, it started to lose its charm. The main characters were endearing and adorable, but the book just kept getting stretched out for no reason. They were clearly into each other from the get-go. I don't understand why they had to do all those things involving bad double dates and always denying that something was afoot between them. Come on, they went out with people with such questionable tastes, and they couldn't give each other a shot; that didn't feel right.

The book tells the story of Hazel, a twenty-something third-grade teacher, who is quirky, weird and as the book kept pressing the point, totally un-normal, who went to college with Josh and knew it from the first time she laid eyes on him that he was gorgeous, perfect, and wanted to be his best friend. They meet again years later at Josh's sister's barbecue party, the sister who also happens to be Hazel's best friend. They have this flirtatious energy around each other; they care for each other but keep stating that they would never date one another. But things start to change when their double dates turn disastrous, and they end up spending more time in each other's company, and before they know it, they are sleeping together. But they still aren't ready to admit their feelings for each other.

This book promised to be a light-hearted rom-com with endearing, fun characters. The characters just felt pretty one-dimensional to me. They lacked depth and stayed the same almost throughout the book.

But its overemphasis on Hazel's temperament and her constant streak of getting into trouble and making an ass out of herself was such a turn-off for me. This book made it look like crazy and happy-go-lucky women find it very hard to get potential long-term partners for themselves because their craziness would eventually make them run for their lives. And Josh was somehow so special to look past all of it, and god-forbid find it endearing. 

The last few chapters just dragged on. I was about to give up reading it when suddenly they came out with that ending, totally out of the blue. It was unexpected, and I scrambled through my brain to find out if it had been leading up to it all along. It came out of nowhere.

I feel let down. :/

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