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yourbookishbff 's review for:

How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang
4.0
dark emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Stunning writing and emotional insight - and a heck of a dark premise. This won't be for everyone, but fortunately, Kuang isn't using trauma as a flashy third act reveal and lays out exactly what we'll be facing for these characters in the prologue, so readers can determine pretty quickly if they're in or out on this set-up. I appreciated the darkly comedic reflections on grief and the depictions of PTSD, depression and panic attacks as a very human part of the fall-out from tragedy (I particularly appreciate how emphasized therapy is for both characters in a story where codependence is the biggest risk to their HEA). There was a beat in the third act that had me wary for a bit, but Kuang made it work in the end. I would recommend Kuang to historical romance readers (you can just TELL from her prose that she's one of us) with a heavy emphasis on the content warnings. 

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