The blurb was promising but the execution fell flat tbh. I did not really like the insta-love between Helen & Taylor. While Taylor was really sweet and nice, I don't think I liked Helen as much as him. The characters felt superficial and I was struggling to form a connection with them. The beginning was engaging but as the story progressed, I was just dragging myself to finish it, ngl.

The ARC copy of this book was provided to me by Netgalley in exchange of an honest review

I love a good holiday novella. Normally they take place around Christmas so when I find one featuring another holiday and written by a Canadian author I’ve been meaning to check out? Count me in! Not Your Valentine, a new Kobo Originals work from author Jackie Lau, was published on January 24 and was a short read that was perfect to get into the Love Day mood.

Here’s the book’s description:
Helen Tsang is tired of the pitying looks. From her parents, her friends, and even the bubble tea shop guy, who recognized her from the video. Almost one year ago, some loser couldn’t mind their own damn business and filmed an unsuspecting Helen's very public break-up during what was supposed to be a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner. A video of her ex-boyfriend saying, "It's not me, it's you. You're holding me back" went viral.
Desperate to give everyone something else to talk about and with Valentine’s Day approaching once again, she asks her long-time friend Taylor Li to be her fake boyfriend, just to prove that she's moved on and hasn’t sworn off love. (Spoiler alert: She's totally sworn off love.) Taylor is the perfect option—single for once, and for some godforsaken reason, he loves Valentine’s Day.


But Helen didn't expect was how easy it would be to get Taylor on board, fitting right into the boyfriend-shaped hole in her life. All she wanted was a couple sickeningly sweet dates to fill her social feeds, not corny text messages of silly heart-shaped cakes, and bouquets of flowers that harbor hidden meanings. Wanting to be around his sunshine attitude and delicious forearms all the time? That definitely wasn't expected.
With February 14 quickly approaching, it's getting increasingly difficult to ignore her feelings, especially when she starts wishing it wasn’t all an act.
Oh God. What has she done?
I’ll be honest that it took a bit of time to understand Helen and get into the flow of how Lau wrote. And I’ve spent the last few weeks wondering how on earth I would try to describe what I meant by that. This was a short book - Goodreads puts it at 136 pages - so it’s tricky when some of those precious pages are spent trying to get the hang of a character and their story. I liked Helen a lot but I think I was being too Elder Millennial and forgot what it was like to be younger. And the lying to friends and family about dating someone? That was hard for me to get into. I also struggled with the assumption that everyone would still be thinking of Helen and the viral video a year later (before it was ultimately brought up by the “news” cycle again). It all seemed a bit too…like Helen was the centre of the universe, maybe?

Speaking of fake dating though… As much as I hated the reason why Helen got into it, I do enjoy a good fake dating trope. Lau made it work pretty well, though there seemed to be a lot of set up and explanation for why Helen and Taylor knew each other and why he’d be perfect for shenanigans. That said, I did really like them together and was rooting for them the whole time. I love when characters are so clearly a good match for each other!



Have you ever noticed that, for some reason, romance books need to tell you the first and last names of every single character the first time they’re introduced? It’s something I’ve noticed myself for years and I don’t get it. I don’t actually care what the character's last name is - unless it's somehow connected to the plot. And when you’re meeting four characters in a page and a half (of a short novella), it’s a bit much. I don’t necessarily blame Lau (though I do question why a romance novella needed to have the heroine, a group of four girlfriends plus mom, dad, sister, sister-in-law, plus a romantic interest…) for giving each character first and last names. I blame the genre and the expectations the publishers assume readers have. I do acknowledge that sometimes using last names is a quick way to get an idea of the background of the character. But I don’t really love the expectation that I’m supposed to assume something about someone based on their name. Am I reading too much into this? Anyone else have thoughts?

But back to the romance in this book. It is STEAMY. For a short book, it packs in a lot of sexy moments and I was here for it. It’s sex positive too which is always great to see in romance novels. The sex scenes weren’t too much for the novella, in my opinion, and they were honest and felt right for the story as a whole.

A final note: I don’t think you have to read this around Valentine’s Day but it is a perfect book to tuck into near the beginning of the year. I loved that it started on New Year’s Day and then had a few scenes centred on Lunar New Year. But since this novella is so short, you can get this baby finished in no time so you can buy it today and have it done by the end of Valentine’s Day!

All in all, Not Your Valentine was a ton of fun. It had me craving all sorts of food while reading it and I was fully invested in the Happily Ever After. I’m really looking forward to reading more from Jackie Lau!

*An egalley of this novella was provided by the publisher, Kobo Originals, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

3.75 overall rating, rounded up to 4 stars! This was a short easy read that I really enjoyed - it started out sweet, got unexpectedly spicy, then ended sweet again 🥰

Here’s what I LOVED - when they were in the throes of their fake relationship. Helen and Taylor had incredible chemistry during this part of the book. The dates, text messages, little gifts, and especially the weekend at the cabin we’re magical! I would have given my left foot for dual POV. I was dying to know exactly what was going through his head and I think it would have added to the tension and build up!

What I didn’t love - I’m not the biggest fan of social media trauma tropes. It’s a personal thing, it’s just not my favorite. It feels like a one big constant real world pop culture reference and somewhat immature. Then, there were the scenes before and after the fake dating. The lead up to the fake relationship idea on Helen’s behalf was not strong in my opinion. (Here’s where I would have also loved dual POV. Taylor agree immediately and they barely discuss it.) Likewise, when they share their true feelings for one another and the “conflict” is resolved, they both agree immediately with little to no discussion.

Despite the lackluster beginning and end, I had a great time reading this. The middle of the book felt like it came from a whole different world - I LOVED it. If the beginning and end matched the writing of the heart of the story, it would be a solid 5 star read!!!!!

Not Your Valentine is a chessy Chinese-Canadian romcom set a few weeks before valentines day. 

It follows Helen Tsang. After her terrible public break up with her boyfriend, Charles went viral. Helen decided to stay off dating or even falling in love. 

For the past year she has allowed herself to move on from the terrible comments people Adepoju about her online after Charles said "it's you not me" to her when he broke up with her. 

But even after a year of throwing herself into work her friends and family don't 100% believe she's moved on from Charles. 

With a new year and another valentines day around the corner, Helen us sure that the video of her break up would resurface and the terrible comments would start circulating again. 

So when her friend who owns the cafe asks her about how she's doing she suddenly blurts out that she has a new boyfriend. 

Helen has no choice but to find the closest person to agree into a fake dating relationship with her. She chooses her high school friend, Taylor Yi who surprisingly agrees to start a Fake relationshi  with her. 

They decide to go on dates and Helen opens an Instagram account to share their date pictures. 

A few weeks into their fake relationship and Helen begins to feel awkward around Taylor. There's no way she could possibly be really falling for him. 

I loved that this book didn't use miscommunication to advance the plot. It was sweet and chessy. It's very fast paced considering I finished reading it in a day. 

Th  story is told from Helen' point of view and she is such a funny character. I loved when she was conflicted about her feelings and when she struggled about how she felt she decided to tell her friends. 

Taylor Li is such a baby girl character. He was cozy to experience if that makes sense. 
Asides the cheesiness and steamy scenes, The story also explores racism experienced by Taylor from one of his parents and it also explores child abandonment and fetishization of Asian (in this case Chinese) people. 

It's a quick read and you'll definitely enjoy it plus it brought me out of my reading slump and it was a good thing I read it on valentines day.

4.5/5

Thank you NetGalley, Kobo Originals and Jackie Lau for gifting me a copy of “Not Your Valentine” in exchange for an honest review.

This is a quick fun read, just over 100 pages. For me this was the perfect book to grab when you have an hour of free time and you don't want to grab a longer book to get sucked into.

Helen has it all great friends and a loving family, oh yeah but last valentines day her boyfriend publicly dumped her over the fact that she didn't support his crypto business. It was also filmed and went viral making Helen want to stay away from the romance department, understandingly.

So what does Helen do... if you guessed that she asks a friend to be her fake boyfriend you are correct! I loved her and Taylor together. They were such a cute couple and they brought out the best in each other. I enjoyed that even though it was a short book we still were given an inside look at how her feelings for Taylor grow and how she heals.

I really like how the third act break up wasn't one of those smack myself in the face and roll my eyes. In my mind there is nothing worse then a bad third act break up it can completely ruin a book for me.

I also enjoyed reading about the Lunar New Year and reading about new traditions and a culture I don't normally read about!

✨ Book Review ✨

Not Your Valentine - Jackie Lau

This was such a fun yet sweet read. Grumpy sunshine meets fake dating in a quick and easy read.

Helen’s last Valentine’s Day was a disaster: she was made a viral sensation after being dumped publicly with the line “it’s not me, it’s you”. Now, with Valentine’s Day around the corner, everyone pities her and she just can’t stand it. How better to shut them up than by telling them she has a new boyfriend? A new boyfriend who happens to be her gentle and nice best friend.

It was a refreshing story where the female MC is the grump and the male MC is the sunshine. This typically doesn’t happen in the books I read so was a welcomed change. I loved the Asian-Canadian representation too and truly wanted to try Helen’s mother’s wonton soup.

It is told in single POV and I didn’t mind it. The story being short was an appealing factor to me and I believe had we thrown in another POV this would have changed.

Although sweet, there was nothing much more to this story. There was little action or problem encounters throughout; it was just a nice, easygoing read. A perfect book for someone curled up on the sofa wanting to feel good.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy to read in exchange for an honest review!

#notyourvalentine #jackielau #romancereads #netgalley

I was so excited for this one! Valentine’s Day and fake dating? Yes please! However while I normally like a quick read this felt too quick and lacked depth. I felt like I didn’t get to know the characters well enough and therefore didn’t care much about what happened. Overall I was disappointed with this one

What an adorable grumpy x sunshine novella perfect for Valentine’s Day!

The one thing I do wish is that I really wanted it to be a little bit longer because I just craved more especially once Helen + Taylor actually became girlfriend and boyfriend.

After Helen got dumped on Valentine's Day in a very very public way, she's decided to swear of love. But when her friends and family get worried about her, she decides to enter a fake relationship with a long time friend to reassure them.

This friends to lovers, fake dating romance promised a lot when I first read the blurb. But to be honest, it didn't quite deliver, in my opinion.
The basic plot was a good and fun one, but I didn't get emotionally invested in the characters, I didn't find them endearing enough I guess ^^
And I did find the writing a bit tedious at times, with lengthy inner monologues that didn't add much value to the story, it just slowed down the pace of it.
I just didn't get invested enough in the story for it to fully appeal to me. I just had to force myself to pick it up and finish it. Maybe it was just the wrong moment for me, so don't hesitate to give it a go if you're interested!

Thank you NetGalley and Kobo for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

A perfect Valentine's Day read! Fake dating AND grumpy sunshine tropes in the same novel! A huge win. I really enjoyed this novel and will be purchasing a hard copy for my shelf.

Review:
Not Your Valentine
Jackie Lau

Not Your Valentine is the usual fake dating trope. And while it was a quick read and well written but nothing stood out.

I will say I was more invested in the fake dates for the foods as opposed to Helen trying to pull one over on her friends and family. Lau did an amazing job at causing me to salivate all over my kindle.

Helen got dumped on Valentine’s Day. Publicly and it went viral on social media.

A year later, it still feels like it follows her. Lots of people feel sorry for her and she feels sorry for herself.

To avoid getting the sympathetic stares, she decided to ask her longtime friend Taylor to pretend to be her boyfriend for the holidays. So, she doesn’t look alone for Valentine's Day.

As she starts hanging out with him, she realizes that through their interactions that he isn’t a bad guy to romantically date.

I loved how introverted Helen is in this book. A lot of times you come across characters who are super confident and such. Helen was awkward and kept to herself. It felt a little refreshing on the character dynamic.

Though I really felt that this was a quick and easy read, it was too short where it felt like it was lacking some details.

I felt like I would have a little context on her breakup with the previous guy on Valentines Day. All was mentioned that Helen laughed at his business idea and felt that this was a good match. At that point, with no context, I felt like there was a real reason she got dumped and I had a hard time feeling sorry for the character. It wasn't until the middle of the book that she actually says that this guy was rude and not a great guy to begin with. But by then, I have already formed my opinion of Helen.

I didn’t really feel like I got to know Taylor as the love interest. I don’t feel like I got to know him in this book. Maybe it was the length of this story, but I don’t think there was enough time for me as a reader to get to know him.

I didn’t particularly like the end. It was cringey and I just didn’t care for it.

I really wanted to love this book but felt that if this was longer, some details could have been ironed out.

I loved The Stand Up Groomsman by Jackie Lau so I knew I had to read this one. And I am glad I did, but I didn't love it as much as The Stand Up Groomsman and found a few things to be similar (not really an issue, but I wish the characters stood out more in Not Your Valentine because I adored the leads in Groomsman).

3.5/5

Sort of mixed reviews here! I liked the friends to lovers aspect (who am I), but thought the fake dating was a bit far fetched. It definitely was needed to move the plot forward wand with a novella I'll take it, but the reasoning didn't entirely work for me.

I do like how Helen was sort of unlikeable and just set in her ways and not looking for love. She hates Valentine's Day and all the imagery that comes with it, which was fine, but a bit heavy handed at points. I did like how Taylor kept teasing her about it and how she was like "yeah I know I'm easy to tease".

As a random note - too many dreams for such a short work!!

Their texting was my favorite part and I did really like seeing their dates. I also am a sucker for a character who has a not great family situation (Taylor) get absorbed into a loving family (Helen's). The epilogue was very cute.

Also I did really like how Taylor's feelings developed, but it would've been nice to see his POV. I know in novellas that is a bit tricky to pull off, but I think it would've added another layer to this story.

Overall, if you want a quick fake dating/friends to lovers novella I would recommend this one.

TW: parent leaving/trauma from that, fetishizing of Asian people
CW: divorce

*thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the eARC; all thoughts are my own*

Cute story and a quick read. Felt like sumthing was missing though. I did enjoy the book though!

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book.

The perfect fake dating romance! Taylor is Helen's friend from high school that she still sees. He was there for her after her embarrassing break up and now she has him pretending to be her fake boyfriend because she is sick of everyone asking her if she is ready to date again.
I loved Taylor! He was the nicest guy and would do anything for Helen. Helen isn't sure about her new feelings for Taylor and is worried she will ruin her friendship with him. Such a cute Valentine's Day story!
3.5 ⭐
Thanks Netgalley for this ARC!

This was a fun and cute read for Valentine’s Day. A little spice and a cute romance. Nothing spectacular but nothing wrong with it either.

A very predictable storyline, but a quick, cute read for this time of year. This book was really funny in parts.
⭐️ 3/5
🌶 5/5


Thank you to NetGalley and Jackie Lau for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Helen has sworn off love and who would blame her after her last break up went viral on Valentine’s Day. Helen, tired of pitying looks, asks her long-time friend Taylor to be her fake boyfriend just to prove to friends and family that she has moved on.

While I liked Not Your Valentine, I wasn’t blown away as it was highly predictable and the ending felt rushed. Helen had some realistic struggles and I loved that she was the grumpy one! Taylor was sweet but we didn’t really get to know him well. I wanted more!

REVIEW FOR NOT YOUR VALENTINE

3 Stars

Thank you to Netgalley, Kobo Originals and Jackie Lau for the gifted copy!

This was a cute novella to read for Valentine's Day. I thought fake dating premise was cute, and one of my favorite things about novellas is they cut through the fluff and just get to the point of the story. However, I felt the MCs internal dialogue to be boring, and she was a bit of a stick in the mud. Additionally, this book had some steam to it but it wasn't as captivating as I felt it could be.

Miscommunication ran rampant in this story, and it was a short one so it was doubly irritating. While some of it was necessary, I think they could have been a bit more transparent with their feelings and less wishy washy and the effect on the reader would have been the same.

If you're looking for something quick and cute, this is it, but it is by no means a matsterpiece.

Was a lovely novella that allowed me to get to know Helen & Taylor and experience their growth together as a couple and also individually. I was rooting for them the whole time!

Absolutely adored the representation of Lunar New Year and Asian communities. And I died that they both did the grand gesture with various heart shaped cakes!

-Reverse Grumpy/Sunshine
-Fake Dating
-Friends-to-Lovers
-He Fell First

ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are honest and my own.