I know it’s only the end of January, but I just found my favorite book of the year (so far). The way I am completely and utterly obsessed with An Optimist’s Guide to Heartbreak! I started this and finished it in one sitting, staying up until 6am to devour it. 😅 Like, I already want to reread.
This is easily my favorite Jennifer Hartmann read now, and I’ve already had other 5-star reads from her in the past. Lucy was everything and more, she instantly became a favorite heroine. I loved her joy and awkward texts and happiness and naïveté and hope. She made me smile and laugh so much and I just am in love with her. Cal is the complete opposite of Lucy, extremely closed-off, broody, grumpy (basically my kind of hero).
Cal and Lucy have a past, they knew one another as children and grew up as next-door neighbors before a tragedy in life tore them apart. It’s been 9 years since they’ve seen/spoken to one another (when Lucy was 13) and Lucy finds herself purchasing the house Cal grew up in when it becomes available for sale, it holds all the best memories for her. She wants to track down her old friend Cal and does at the car repair shop he owns.
Lucy asks to interview for the receptionist position in the auto shop and the story takes off from there. I didn’t know much going into this one at all and it honestly encompasses so much that I don’t even think I could fully describe it all. The angst and tension between these two is out-of-this world amazing! Lucy is the joy to Cal’s broodiness and she’s determined to make him smile and fill his life with joy again. We have a tattooed hero who has a kitten, alllll the angst, a heartbreakingly achy shared past, a hand flex, that close proximity when they work together and when she ends up staying with him a couple days when her house floods, adorable dogs, an absolutely possessive hero, music (she sings and plays the guitar weekly at a bar live), such a satisfying slow burn, all the emotions! Ugh I am wrecked and obsessed and already want to both continue on to book 2 and reread this book over again!
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10 stars!! READ THESE BOOKS!
Review for BOTH books in this series. You MUST start with An Optimists Guide to Heartbreak! 10 ⭐️ 3🌶️ (yes, 10 out of 5, they are that good!) “Home is something I buried a long time ago…But I buried it inside you. Just in case I ever wanted to go back." 😭😭😭😭😭 This was by far my favorite series/duet I have read yet. Perfection. Book 1 ends in a cliff hanger so make sure you have both before you start, & you must read them in order! I knew these would give me alll the feels but I basically went in blind and didn’t know what I was in for. 💛Second-chance, childhood love 💙Friends to lovers 💛Grumpy/sunshine 💙Duel POV 💛Slow burn/spicy 🌶️ 💙Death/loss/grief 💛Addiction 💙Healing 💛Angsty, emotional romance “not everything that makes us hurt needs to be forgotten or banished. It hurts because it mattered. And things that mattered once, will always matter” ❤️ These are painful and angsty and emotional. I pretty much cried the last 60 pages of book 1 and started crying on page 3 of book 2 so yea it was destruction for me the whole time. "Do you really believe I'll uncover your flawed pieces and think for a second they won't be pieces worth keeping?" 🥺😭 I mean, stab the knife and twist it will ya 💔 I loved ALL the characters so much. UGH Cal has my whole heart my god I felt for him the entire 2 books, he just broke me. I mean the dude literally didn’t even think he was worthy of having friends 💔Don’t worry tho, he was also hot and possessive 🫠 "A girl as sweet as you shouldn't look like sin” 🔥 #yesplease I cannot say enough good things. 1000% recommend, just be ready to have your heart torn out and put back together again.
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Top reviews from other countries
- Bibliophile82Reviewed in Australia on October 28, 2024
Gripping, emotional, laugh out loud and gasp
