lavenderscribes's profile picture

lavenderscribes 's review for:

The Break Up by Charlotte Barnes
2.0
lighthearted reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Edi and Rowan's relationship seems to be going well -- they just got engaged! That is what she thinks, anyway, until he suggests that they take a break to date other people. Hurt and confused, Edi turns to her friends for support and comfort. Eventually she meets Winifred, who serves as a catalyst for Edi to reconsider her relationship with Rowan and whether she still wants to go through with the engagement.

Fun fact! This book is severely misadvertised. It makes it seem like this book is a cute rom-com focused on Edi and Winifred, when in fact it is focused on the collapse of Rowan and Edi's incredibly relationship. So please do not go into this book expecting an f/f romance -- it is more focused on Edi and her friend group. Frankly, my rating would be at least a star less if I rated it according to what I expected, but I have decided to judge this story as it is.

Like I said, Winifred is a pretty minor character within this story and Edi's relationship to her serves as a catalyst for self development. It was very confusing as to why Edi stayed with Rowan for the length of time she did, but the collapse was well developed.

The plot progression was quite standard -- this book was a very easy and rather fun read. The writing, however, is very British and a lot of the slang and phrasings were a dash confusing. I saw somewhere that there had been a transphobic comment in the book -- this had been changed in the final edition, thankfully.

Overall, the book was an easy read but didn't do anything new. If you go in expecting a story about a decaying relationship with a sapphic relationship serving as self development for the main character, it's a pretty okay book.