Review: The friends-to-lovers rom-com of my dreams! 

 

“Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating” follows Josh Im and Hazel Bradford as they set each other up on progressively terrible double blind dates in an attempt to convince themselves there is nothing between them. 

 

I could not get enough of Josh and Hazel’s starkly different characterizations! Josh is more mellow, soft-spoken, and reserved. Until Hazel enters his orbit, he’s just going through the motions in life. Hazel is playful, outgoing, and quirky. She refuses to settle for anyone embarrassed by her wackiness. At the outset, the two seem completely incompatible in terms of their personalities, but their friendship allows for romantic feelings to develop. The two have the most fun together and I loved watching them learn to open up, see each other exactly as they are, and give in to the gravitational pull that draws them together the more double blind dates they go on. Each one is more disastrous than the last and contributed to my immense enjoyment of the story. I can’t count how many times I broke out in laughter and the ending made me smile so big! I truly had a blast reading this one.