This book was so adorable! It exceeded my expectations.. I saw this book on NetGalley and the title and the book cover caught my attention. Please understand although I received this from NetGalley my review is my own.

Let’s get into Helen I loved her as a main character. She is quirky and a little bit grumpy and I love that. She is very down to earth relatable to me in away she’s a little bit of a loner and so am I.
Helen wants to get everyone off her back so she comes up with the idea to pretend to date her high school best friend Taylor, Taylor who is opposite of Helen because his need for approval and constantly reaching out to Helen throughout their fake relationship.
Although the relationship starts off fake it quickly turns into something real something neither of them were expecting. This is my first time reading a book with Asian characters and I love the diversity in Asian MMC. I loved the representation that Jackie Lau’s characters presented.
There is a lot of wholesome goodness in this story and the ending omg I just adored. I loved the detail description around food, buses, travel that I loved it made me feel as if I was there with the family. Most people may not like the details but I loved them.
One of my favorite characters was Helens mom she reminds me of my mom, she was bad ass, supportive and mad sure she was understanding and there for Helen.

I would have loved for this book to be longer I can’t lie, but nonetheless it was an adorable read and was very heartwarming.
Thank you NetGalley, publisher, and author for allowing me the opportunity to read this lovely book.

This was just the quick and sweet read I needed to get out of a bit of a reading slump. Reverse grumpy/sunshine can be very hit or miss, and while the FMC seemed a bit juvenile at some moments, this was definitely a hit. The lovable MMC had me grinning. The writing flowed nicely and kept me engaged. Started during work hours and was finished by end of work day (don’t tell my boss 😜)

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
It was a quick read and I liked how it was written. The main characters were funny and many moments made me smile and laugh. I went through this super fast. There were a few places where the mc feels more like a teenager or young adult rather than almost 30 but I'm willing to ignore those as the story is really interesting. It is short and sweet and Taylor is a total cinnamon roll. Some of the tropes in this book are friends to lovers, reverse grumpy x sunshine, fake dating.

Well, I simply adored this book! It was everything I wanted it to be and even a little bit more.
When I saw this book on the netgalley page I was intrigued by the title. I am a seasonal reader and every year indulge myself in summer, autumn and Christmas reads. But a Valentine read… never have I had one. So I was a bit intrigued to dive into the story of Helen. Someone who has sworn of love and everything to do with romance.
I absolutely loved Helen as a main character. She has her quirks and she is a bit of a grump. Although I think there is more to Helen then this short story is letting us see. I think she might score somewhere on the spectrum and if this book had been a bit more lengthy we could have learned more about Helen. But aside from that I absolutely loved her. She is very down to earth, matter of fact and likes to be on her own. But when she tries to get everybody of her case by fake dating her high school best friend Taylor, it turns out she isn’t so unromantic as she thought. She is however extremely funny and I loved spending time inside her head.
Taylor is the perfect male lead in this book. He is such a sunshine characters, with always a big smile on his face and he is utterly adorable. Sweet, kind and caring. I think if Taylor was a dog he would be one of those goofy, faithful Labradors.

And by now everybody sure knows I do love a good sex scene. Well let me tell you, the sex scenes in this story are hot as fuck! So so good, even the solo sex scene was on point!

Was this book short? Yes, very short!
Was this book predictable? Yes, very predictable!
Was it quirky, funny, adorable and heartwarming? Yes, Yes, Yes!
Go read it now!

Thank you netgalley, the publisher and the author for giving me the opportunity to read this delightful romance!

This was an adorable valentine’s story with a touch of spice. Its grumpy meets sunshine

I personally hate V day so I related somewhat to the MC Helen.

Because this is written by a Canadian author and set in Toronto don’t be taken off guard by refs to poutine and know that a “toque” is a hat.

The relationship between Helen and her friends and family is very touching and fun. It’s what made the book for me because the romance was a little flat in my opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kobo Originals for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Not your Valentine is a cute fake relationship story involving Helen and her high school friend Taylor. Upon reading the description I'll admit I thought Helen was probably being overly dramatic, but Jackie Lau does a great job of detailing out all the mortifying parts of the viral video. It's also my second book that I've read from Jackie Lau and this FMC is another sort of introverted, happy with a quiet existence, character who's never really branched out but has a core group of friends. Taylor is very much the opposite of Helen in his need for approval and constantly reaching out to Helen throughout their relationship as friends, which is why she feels like she can ask him to be her fake boyfriend... which of course starts to feel real... and then gets VERY real. I also love the representation in Jackie Lau's characters, and not just that they are Asian but also of the diversity in Asian MMC. In this book and also the stand-up groomsman, they are both not what you would typically expect from a romance novel main character. A male of mine lamented recently as to why there aren't any books where a guy looks more "normal" and I think she does a great job at that representation and not only "normal" but also very sexy to the main character and not in an "in spite of" kind of way. With all that being said, I might have to admit that my favourite character is Helen's mom. She is so badass supportive but in only the way an Asian mom could be... it's a bit unexpected in terms of trope, and I am HERE FOR IT. And she makes the best wonton soup.

There's a lot of goodness in this story, and the ending is so cute. There was a lot of description around food and buses and travel which I think could have been shortened here to tighten up the story (even though I am a Torontonian and like to fangirl at the subway stops and guess at which food joints she is referring to). What I would have loved more is insight around why they really liked each other, especially Taylor, and more around that longing. I was also a bit annoyed that Taylor initiates EVERYTHING. Even in the end, it was still him!

I still quite enjoyed the story and can't wait to see what other goodies Jackie Lau comes up with!

Steam: 🔥🔥
Heart Flutters:❤️

Not Your Valentine is a short and fun novella from Jackie Lau.

Helen is anti-love after a video of her getting dumped on Valentine's Day the previous year went viral. When she gets tired of everyone's pity and asking her about dating again she asks her friend Taylor to be her fake boyfriend. It was sweet watching them go from friends to fake dating to real feelings.

Though this is a shorter story, it didn't feel rushed and the relationship progression was nicely done. This is the perfect book to pick up if you're looking for something quick and entertaining to read!

After a brutal breakup that included a viral video, Helen is down on love. So she asks her friend of 15 years, Taylor, to be her fake boyfriend, and of course they catch feelings. Fake dating, friends to lovers, and grumpy (her) sunshine (him) were all accounted for in this novella!

Taylor was a complete cinnamon roll and all that is good in the world, and I would have enjoyed getting his POV. Helen, on the other hand, was a self-effacing and insecure main character whose eccentricities and quips became quite irritating quite quickly. I also felt that she behaved more like a recent college grad than someone about to turn 30. I don't know that I would read this again, but it was a fun and quick read leading up to Valentine's Day!

Thank you to Kobo Originals and NetGalley for gifting me with an ARC to review!

3.5 stars

I've been meaning to pick up one of Lau's books for a while and somehow never got around to until this novella!

I always enjoy a good fake dating story and this one was no exception. I really enjoyed how the characters were friends first and related so well with each other.

For being a novella however some parts felt repetitive.

Helen was embarrassingly and publicly broken up with on Valentines Day by Charlie - not the love of her life, there were some red flags, but still.

She keeps being asked about dating again until she finally blurts out that she has a new boyfriend…and has to quickly find someone to play the part.

Toronto
Charcuterie Chalets
Family dynamics
Race/split families
Feeling unloveable
Food descriptions
Fake dating
One bed
Grumpy x sunshine

Overall a cutesy if not somewhat predictable read. Great for getting in the mood for Valentine’s Day!

“For a minute, we eat our dessert in companionable silence. Me and my fake boyfriend, aka the guy who brought chocolate cake to my door. When he reaches up to swipe some buttercream off his lip, my gaze zeroes in on his mouth. I need to think about something else.”

💕 Tropes: friends to lovers, fake dating, grumpy x sunshine

📚 Synopsis: Helen Tsang is sick and tired of being asked if she's ever going to date again. After a disastrous public breakup that went viral last Valentine's Day, she's sworn off love---but her friends and family can't help their questions. Even the guy at the bubble tea shop seems to pity her. So, in an attempt to get them off her back, she asks her friend, Taylor, to be her fake boyfriend---at least through Valentine's Day.

✏️ Review: This book was so cute, and the perfect quick read for the lead-up to Valentine's Day. There were a few things that really stood out to me about Not Your Valentine among other books with tropes like this:

1) Although it's friends to lovers, they're not best friends–more like friends who see each other every once and a while, when one of them makes an effort. Neither of them have been in love with the other since forever, either, so it wasn't painful reading about how their affections weren't returned. Instead, the development of their attraction to each other and relationship felt really natural as they started to spend more time with each other.

2) Because of this, there's no big "OH MY GOD WE CAN'T DATE" moment. The move from fake dating to real dating also feels natural.

3) She's the grumpy, he's the sunshine :)

A few more things I loved:

- The male main character, Taylor, isn't your typical 6-foot-something, bulky alpha male. He's 5-foot-5, average build, and he's got a ponytail. And he's STILL sexy as f***

- Helen is just allowed to be grumpy and no one begrudges that of her! She doesn't have to change who she is to be worthy of love.

- Helen's group of friends and her family are so supportive of her, even when they're annoying her, and it's really lovely to see that.

All in all, a highly enjoyable read!

⚠️ CWs: racism, parental abandonment, mentions of fetishization

🌈 Representation: Asian main characters

Final Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2
Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this grump/sunshine short story. I was totally in the mood for a cinnamon roll hero and Taylor hit the spot. I just loved how he loved our unconventional heroine, Helen, and the fake dating trope is totally a favorite of mine.

I really appreciated the progression of their relationship and feelings toward each other. This is a solo POV, so we could only guess how Taylor was feeling but Helen was hilarious. Bowling shoes and human hearts, there was so much quirky fun!

Even though it was a short story, I didn’t feel slighted on character development or the romance. We definitely got to see that they were attracted to each other!!

Overall, a quick fun holiday read with some real emotion and characters you totally root for!

3.5 Stars. Helen was dumped on Valentines Day almost a year ago and the video went viral leading to continued shame and self consciousness regarding relationships. One day when yet another friend asks about her dating life she lies and says she has a boyfriend. She recruits Taylor, her friend from high school, to be her fake boyfriend and he agrees. The two begin spending more and more time together which leads to real feelings.

This novella, is just that, a novella, which means that there is not a lot of time to tell the story and somehow I still got bored reading it. Short books can be great, but every scene and every word needs to move the plot forward. This didn’t do that for me. Where the plot was straight forward and predictable, I needed some sort of sparkle to keep me engaged, but I didn’t find it. I really wish this would have been dual POV as it may have added some depth. I don’t know. I the story was cute enough and enjoyed it enough to finish, but it’s not a book I’m going to remember.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kobo Originals for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars for this friends-to-lovers, fake-dating Valentine's day novella!

Jackie Lau's "Not Your Valentine" is a steamy, syrupy sweet novella that doesn't have very high stakes but is very fun to read. It's fast-paced with well-written characters. Helen is a grumpy female protagonist who has been jaded by love because she was burned when her Valentine's day breakup got recorded and went viral. Taylor is Helen's long-time friend who has always been there for her when she needed him, though they are not so close that they see each other super frequently. Helen is tired of getting the third degree from her friends and family about when she's going to start dating again, so she enlists Taylor's help by asking him to be her fake boyfriend. The longer they fake-date, the more real her feelings get for him. Does he reciprocate?

I love that the female gets to be grumpy! I wish that happened more often. We don't all fart rainbows and positivity, you know. Helen is a hilarious character! I loved her attitude, her humor, and the way her brain works. She was such a great character! And I loved Taylor, too. Such a sweet, earnest cinnamon roll! And with long hair?! SWOON! Both have traumas to overcome in order to be better people, and they help each other out by talking about them. Refreshing! This novella has a fabulous commentary about the fetishization of Asians in the dating world and beyond. Lau brings up a lot of fantastic points that frankly aren't discussed enough but deserve a space to be heard and seen! There is also an interesting commentary about what people may do in the aftermath of going viral, though I wish Lau would have gone a bit deeper with this part. Overall, this is a wonderful, quick Valentine's day read that I very much enjoyed.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jackie Lau, and Kobo Originals for providing me with an ARC copy of this book! All opinions are my own, and I was not compensated for my review.

shut up, this was such a cute valentines romance. best friends to lovers & fake dating you will ALWAYS be loved by me. i love that helen was such a grump and taylor was the one who could make her the happiest. this was such a sweet book. I do wish we had taylor's POV but its okay. Thank you NetGalley, Kobo Originals and Jackie Lau for the arc!

I received this Ebook A.R.C. of "Not Your Valentine" in exchange for my honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Jackie Lau, and all applicable parties for the opportunity to read and review this work.

**Trigger Warnings**
In my opinion, the main trigger I feel I must disclose is the discussion around the fetishizing of Asian/Asian-American individuals and the inherent racism that accompanies it. While nothing is on page that explicitly depicts this subject matter, it is referenced by the MMC at least twice in the work.

This is the story of Helen Tsang, an Asian American woman in the science industry, who suffers a very public, humiliating breakup on Valentine's Day--which is recorded and goes VIRAL. In an attempt to regain some of her privacy she deletes her social media accounts and decides that she is over the dating scene. However, her family and friends want her to get back "out there". While Helen knows that they only have her best interest at heart, she can't stand the pitying way they bring it up all the time. Enter Taylor, Helen's closest friend since their time in high school. He was there for her after the breakup and continues to show up when Helen needs a shoulder to cry on. This is when Helen gets the ingenious idea to ask Taylor to be her Fake Boyfriend--just long enough to get through Valentine's Day and get her loved ones off her back about being alone. Of course, when real feelings come into play, things get messy and complicated causing Helen to wonder if any of it was really "fake" at all.

My Pros
- I absolutely love that Taylor is biracial (Chinese/White). I think seeing mixed Asian representation is not something we get a lot of in current media.
- I loved the mention of the Lunar New Year, and the fact that Helen's family has a get together to make traditional dishes and celebrate.
-Additionally, I think it was really important to mention how Helen was pursuing a PhD but decided that the path wasn't ideal for her anymore and so she dropped out of that program.

My Cons
- I would have loved a little more detail regarding the Chinese-American/Asian-American heritage. I.E. The Lunar Celebration. Since both of out MCs are of Asian descent, I would have loved to see/learn more about them and their family traditions.


Final Thoughts
- Overall, I feel it was a fairly predictable rom-com style romance. No insane or unpredictable plot twists. This was just a very wholesome and cute romance centered around Valentine's Day and perfect for a palette cleanser between more intense Genres. I'd give it a 3.5/5 and definitely recommend picking it up when it debuts January 24th, 2023.

4 ⭑
“He smiles like he really is glad to see me, and i smile back. Genuinely, not because it’s the right thing to do. Spending time with with Taylor always makes me feel that way.”

This was my first Jackie Lau book so I didn't know if I would like the writing style but it was actually really good. this was a sweet friends to lovers, fake dating romance and even if i don't like fake dating books i enjoyed reading this one. tyler and helen are so cute together, they had such a sweet bond and they’re so comfortable with each other and i loved how great Jackie Lau wrote it in her book.

thank you so much netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

A cute and quick story that's the first I've read from Jackie Lau so I didn't know what to expect but I actually liked it. First, for my family-minded readers, there's decent amounts of sweating and a few sex scenes in the book so be forewarned. Beyond that, it was a cute, short little novella that was a very fun read, even if it was pretty predictable. Personally though I find most rom coms predictable. Overall, if you're in the mood for a quick rom com, this is definitely one I'd recommend.

Thank you netgalley for the eArc.

A cute, quick read. I liked the reversal of the grumpy x sunshine trope and how a-typical both Helen and Taylor were as romance leads. That being said, I found the novel to be quite predictable on all fronts, also there was a tendency for a lot of the chapters to end with Helen feeling something for Taylor and then immediately dismissing it because she didn't believe in love anymore.
While I loved the Canadian setting and the discussions around being a child of immigrants and the rather disgusting fetishization that both characters had felt because of that, I found the overall book lacking. I needed more tension between them and more build up.
I would still recommend this for someone looking for a light, fast read or someone looking to binge a book for valentine's day.

Okay, so I really wanted to like this book—I’ve been trying to read more books by Asian authors about Asian protagonists—but it missed the mark for me. Single POV with an unlikeable and self-deprecating protagonist? Not my thing. I think my struggle with single POV is that authors too often give the protagonist a deep lack of self awareness, and we are stuck with it the whole way through, but I digress.

The idea of the story was fun. Friends to lovers, fake dating, with the addition of Lunar New Year and anti-Valentines day sentiment… I really thought I was going to love it. But the only conflict in the whole story happened in the mind of Helen, the protagonist—no real world conflict and resolution. Just a mess of thoughts and feelings that went unexpressed for the latter half of the book.

It was your typical fake dating scenario where someone inevitably develops feelings, but there was absolutely no showing, just telling. Too much telling. And I’m not just talking about the explicit sex scenes that I was not expecting. Frankly, Helen was either thinking about sex or having sex for the bulk of the book. But aside from that, the story almost felt like meeting minutes at times. Maybe it was the differences between myself and Helen as people, but I just wasn’t drawn in.

On the upside, Taylor was a delightful cinnamon roll of a male protagonist. Sweet, sensitive, loyal, and genuine. We don’t know enough about him, unfortunately. And Helen’s mom? Beyond perfect. I absolutely loved every scene that she was in. I would read a whole book just about her and her cooking. Also food (especially soup) as a central point in a romance is a definite yes for me.

So yeah, I didn’t love this one. Maybe next time. Thanks to NetGalley, Kobo Originals, and Jackie Lau for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.