A big thank-you to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for giving me a copy of this book for an unbiased review.

1/5 - Not for me.

As many reviewers have mentioned, I could not get past the insufferable main character, who displays abysmally minimal growth throughout the novel. It seems that the story attempts to lean into the trope of "film hipster is so unaware of how he treats others that he pushes away the most important person in his life due to his own insecurities and his beliefs that women are tools to his own salvation" but rather than leaning into the trope, the story faceplants into it and never really recovers.

Nick is someone I've unfortunately met many times and have learned to avoid. He's petulant, whiny, narcissistic. He makes obscure references to prove his superior film knowledge with no care as to whether anyone understands him. He complains constantly that his parents, who are living their own lives now that he is a THIRTY YEAR OLD GROWN MAN, are actually "abandoning him." He makes fun of his pregnant sister's hormones and her body.

Worst of all, when his girlfriend gets pregnant, he launches into planning their life together, despite the fact that she does not want a baby or feel that they are ready. It's a very weird section of the book, in which he truly seems entitled to his partner's body and has to be cajoled into seeing things from her perspective. It gives more "spoiled child being denied ice cream" than "grown man being told he isn't ready to be a father."

As an extra annoying tidbit - the beautiful French city of Sisteron unfortunately does not escape from this narrative. Based on the way it's described, it bears zero resemblance to the real place and instead serves as an opportunity to make some vile jokes about the name of the city and to introduce some offensively basic and boring stereotypes about the French. Because why not.

If this narrator is the voice you want in your head telling you their story... you have more patience than I do. Even the other characters in the book seem to find Nick insufferable and those who tolerate him genuinely befuddle me. Unfortunately this is a book I cannot recommend.

I was disappointed with this read. Usually a romance book has a HEA but this did not have it. I also didn't get the cute romance vibes that I was expecting. It was very bland and took forever to read.

I really wanted to love this book but it just wasn’t quite for me. This was placed in the romance genre but that does come with a certain expectation for a Happily Ever After magical ending and this book has a lot more raw reality to it than what you might expect from that genre. I actually think this probably should have just been considered general fiction or maybe even contemporary fiction because that would have managed expectations more.

The story centers around Nick and Ellie, who meet at an election viewing party in 2008. Nick works as a projectionist at a theater and so he wants a life that plays out like a movie, and his connection with Ellie is no exception. Fast forward four years and it is approaching another election. Ellie has moved out of their apartment, and Nick is devastated trying to figure out where it all went wrong. As Nick seeks to understand where things with Ellie fell apart, his life continues to unravel. He loses his apartment, his job, and his parents move away.

There were several things I did enjoy about this. The first were the movie references—I found them kind of fun and charming. I also liked the premise of the book a lot, and thought the harmony in the election night separating the beginning and end four years apart was sort of poetic.

However, I also found the book kind of sad (long-time book friends know I don’t like books that bum me out too much). Nick also wasn’t a particularly likable character. His growth arc sort of leads to him over explaining and to be honest I still felt like he got a lot wrong about what happened and who was at fault for what. I actually liked Ellie quite a bit more and I thought it was clear that she needed to find someone else (clear to the reader but I suppose not clear to Nick).
Overall a bit to moody and melancholy for me. Not enough cute upbeat moments. I circle back to this maybe being categorized in the wrong genre, as it did set it up to be a different type of story than it was.

Where do I start? I didn't finish this one, so no review on Goodreads- it had problems. Why is this set in London if it's focused on the 2008 US election? The main character is too whiny!

This is the first book I’ve tried by this author and will probably be my last. The story was ok, but barely kept my interest. I started to enjoy it more toward the end which is why I gave it a higher rating than I would have.

I didn’t find myself connecting to the characters, Nick frustrated me for most of the book to be honest. Ellie was a better character in my opinion, she knew what she wanted and went for it. Around the end of the book I did end up liking Nick, it just took a lot for me to get there.

I did enjoy this author’s writing style, and story progression. I did enjoy the past and and present timelines, it gave more insight into the relationship issues.

Thank you for the ARC! I had high hopes for this book, but unfortunately I had a hard time with it. I enjoyed the three timelines, but I didn't really connect with either of the characters and the flow of the book was a bit slow for me. It's hard for me to really enjoy a contemporary romance when I'm not rooting for the characters to be together.

My favorite part about the book was all of the movie references--those were great!

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Ballantine for providing an ARC of this book for an honest review. This book was not for me at all. I found it super boring. I DNF'ed it at 17%

I really wanted to like this book but I really, really did not like this book. At all.

First off, I would say that this book is NOT a romance or that it has a HEA. I'm pretty upset by the marketing of it. So I don't know if I'm disappointed because I went into this book expecting it to be a romance since that's how it was categorized, or because it just really wasn't that good for me? I didn't like Nick, and I'm not going to even open up that can of mental worms! Other reviewers have touched on how woe-is-me he is, and I would describe him as a "not all men!" kind of guy if that gives you an idea. I also didn't like the writing style used, the pacing felt very off, and as soon as I started getting that feeling that it wasn't going to be an HEA things just dropped off for me.

To absolutely no one's surprise, I have once again been let down by a man.

Cute story with a great plot but the character Nick was just unlikable. Whether he was written that way on purpose I dont know but it made it hard to like the book. The rest of the characters and story were great. A fast read. 3.5 stars.

Sorry but this book was a DNF for me. The book was too depressing, but the cover makes it seem like it would be a light-hearted read. I enjoyed the 3 timelines in the story, but something was a miss for me. I think it was the pace of the novel. It moved at a snail's pace. You got to have a lot more action in the novel for someone to keep reading.

I really enjoyed this story of finding yourself after a breakup while trying to figure out what exactly went wrong. Sometimes happily ever after doesn't work out, and when it doesn't, life doesn't just stop.

I was a little bamboozled by this book, honestly. But some of that's on me for expecting a new adult romance! Instead, our protagonist Nick is an aggravatingly disappointing 30-year-old man who can't seem to get his life together for... well, the life of him. Or for love. Or for anything, really. Perhaps because I've known a few too many Nicks in my life, this book ground all the wrong gears for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Ballantine Books for advanced access to this title!

Sorry, but this just isn't my kind of book!
I, unfortunately, didn't jive with it.
I would just give it an unrated rating, however, Netgalley makes you put in a star rating.

I really, really wanted to love Love, Unscripted. I loved the idea of male narrator for a romance novel, because that's such a rare find... but he was just so annoying. Everything about his life was so, so hard. Other reviewers have mentioned his "woe is me" attitude, and that's spot on! He's mopey and complains and a complete and total pansy. He didn't deserve Ellie. This also isn't really a romance, because there's no cut-and-dry HEA. It's implied that things work out, but a reader needs details to be fully satisfied. It just didn't work for me.

The premise a sifting through of what went wrong in a romance from a male point of view sounded great. In execution it dragged in places. I thought this would end up being a cute rom com with movie references similar to Kerry Winfrey Waiting for Tom Hanks. Not sure exactly why I thought this, but when it wasn't I was disappointed.

This book really gives unique look into what happens when a relationship ends. There is a lot of time spent rationalizing and figuring out where things went wrong and who gets the blame. Who should take the blame and more importantly, who is really at fault.

This book honestly took me a long time to get through. I enjoyed the way it was set up and the overall concept. I just think the execution did not come across as I would have liked. I found myself putting this book down and reading other things before I was able to finish it. I do want to say that is not the fault of the author, just a reflect of my current reading preferences.

This book dragged a little bit for me and I was very close to DNFing it. I was expecting for a cute and lighthearted rom-com read, but I didn’t get any of that from this book. I was annoyed with the main character for like most of the time and to me, he was very immature and just not a very like able character. There were also too many movie references and I don’t know if it was just me, but I don’t know majority of them. Overall, this book is just probably not for me. The cover was really cute though!

This arc was given to me by the publisher via netgalley. All opinions are my own.


I really enjoyed the premise of the book and the characters. Their interactions were a lot of fun and the writing style using fonts and inner thoughts was really creative and much more like the way I think about situations in my head. I felt the motivations and drive behind each character was compelling and the story was one that was easy to dive into. I would recommend it!

I was originally excited about Love, Unscripted because of the male POV, which isn't so common and I always wonder about. However, that being said, I felt like the story really dragged on and Nick was just very down and disappointed throughout much of the book. Often we want to see reality, the stuff that happens after the great start to any relationship. But I think the male POV just brought the vibe of the book down too much for me.

Nostalgic is a word I saw a lot with the reviews. I thought something was lacking. I didn’t feel a huge connection to this book. I tried. I’m sorry.