Chloe is an aspiring art curator who recently moved with her parents from New York to LA. As if the transition isn’t hard enough, her boyfriend, Jake, breaks up with her through the mail by sending her a box of their items. This sparks her best idea yet: an art exhibit titled “Heartifacts” that displays items from other teens’ break ups. At opening night she meets Daniel, an up and coming filmmaker, and they begin a friendship and creative partnership that turns into more. Chloe makes her feelings known, but Daniel doesn’t believe Chloe is over her ex yet. Chloe has to prove that she is completely over Jake, but when he makes an unannounced trip to LA, Chloe isn’t so sure that she is.

I love the art storyline and settings of galleries and museums. It’s a different concept for a YA romance that makes the friends to lovers trope a bit more interesting. As a main character I found Chloe insanely cringey at times, but I liked Daniel and the supporting characters. All of the characters seem more like twenty somethings traipsing around LA than high school students, though, which is a minor complaint and doesn’t at all impact the plot, but it stood out to me as strange. Thanks to NetGalley, Wednesday Books, and Jennifer Chen for this free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Artifacts of an Ex was the fun-loving book I needed this week. The characters and romance were fun and each had their emotional arc to follow. I like that the story has many layers, so it doesn't feel formulaic. Overall, it was a very entertaining book and I recommend it.

Cute, lighthearted YA novel. Going into this. I thought it was a romcom, but to me it read more contemporary fiction.

Didn’t love it, didn’t hate it. Would recommend if you’re looking for an easy read.

This was a very cute book and I really liked Chloe as the main character. I loved how diverse the characters were without it feeling like the author was just trying to check boxes.

The only problem I had with this book was that all the Happy Planner product placement seemed very odd. Whenever the products were mentioned it felt like a commercial for them & it pulled me out of the book.

When Chloe Chang gets dumped via USPS after moving across the county from NYC to LA, her first instinct is to throw her box of memories in the garbage. Instead, she starts buying other teenagers’ break-up boxes to create an art exhibit, Heartifacts. 💔 I thought this one was really sweet. It's a perfect lighthearted read for those who enjoy young adult stories with high school characters. I lived both Daniel and Chloe and they had a lot of great banter.

Read if you enjoy:
• ya love
• sweet stories
• high school

Artifacts of an Ex by Jennifer Chen
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When Chloe gets dumped via the mail, she gets an idea for an art exhibit. People contribute their memories from failed relationships and Chloe turns them into “Heartifacts”. When Daniel visits the exhibit with a friend, Chloe and Daniel strike up a friendship and work to build up the exhibit.
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What I liked:
-This was such an interesting idea for a story! I loved the idea for this exhibit and I think it would be so interesting to see something like it in real life.
-Chloe and Daniel’s friendship was so sweet, I was really rooting for them to get closer and closer.
-The collaboration towards the end was fantastic and I loved every minute of it.
-Chloe’s family were really awesome, and I also loved this friend group that got together.
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4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A really fun read and I thought the audio was great.

This story is sweet, and I can see why it has such great reviews.
I did think it read pretty young YA, except for one part discussing virginity, and, therefore, this one really wasn't for me.

Alright, this book was really sweet! I think that it read a bit young YA, minus the references by the main character to losing her virginity.

I think that it was a fun plot to follow the creation of an art exhibit and feel like I would want to go see this exhibit if it were real life! The conflict of the book felt like it came up and passed a bit early in the story? I think the overall pacing just threw me off a bit.

Overall, a fun Young Adult romance book that is a very quick and easy read for the summer time!

Chloe gets dumped when her boyfriend just sends her stuff to her without talking.
She makes an art exhibit out of hers and other people she finds breakup box.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this book in exchange for an honest review.


This book was really cute! I thought that idea with the exhibit was very clever. This is a good YA novel but I found myself suspending my disbelief with the timeline of the series of events. I thought the overall concept was cute and I appreciate the MC’s growth through the book but felt myself wanting a little bit of a slowed down pace at times. I definitely enjoyed the book!

*I received an e-arc for review via Netgalley. Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity. All thoughts are my own*

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Artifacts of an Ex was my first book by Jennifer Chen. This was a cute YA romance, and good for a debut!

I really enjoyed the art aspect of the story and found that really unique! Chloe and Daniel made a great team, and I enjoyed seeing their relationship develop. I think Daniel was my favorite character, as Chloe kind of annoyed me sometimes. I also liked how the importance of family was talked about in the book. Chloe has a great relationship with her grandmother and her parents.

I would recommend to those that enjoy YA!

Oh I have things to SAY about this book, but I will be withholding any reviews due to the St. Martin's Press boycott that is ongoing (which includes their imprint Wednesday Books).

#SpeakUpSMP

This book was so cute!
It follows Chloe, who gets dumped after moving from New York To California. Instead of trashing her box of memories with her now ex, she decides to create an art exhibit with her own memories as well as the memories of other teens after their breakups.

I will say, it was a bit slow to start but well worth the read. I loved Chloe’s growth as she learns to cope and let go of her ex to open herself up to someone worthy of her.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jennifer Chen, St. Martin’s Press, and Wednesday Books for the digital arc of this book.

I wanted more from this. It was cute but the characters seemed younger than they were. I struggled with the audio. The female voice sounded like a 13 year old girl and the male character was breathy. It made it difficult for me to get though it.

This was a fine ya romance. I think I just wasn’t the target audience for this. I have to accept that ya contemporary romances just don’t hit the same way anymore. If they still did I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot more.

DNF

I was initially drawn to this book by its cover and seemingly up my alley synopsis. However, after I tried reading the first few chapters, I am not enjoying the writing style. And rather than force through the book that I don’t enjoy the writing of, and inevitably rate it lower because of that, I am DNF’ing to spend my time on books I might enjoy more.

This was a cute YA romance. When you say ARTIFACTS OF AN EX, my mind immediately goes to the word cute—cute, cute, cute. Would I reread it? No. Would I recommend it? Sure, it’s cute—a cute book to entertain you.

I like the book’s concept of using a box of breakup memories to create art, i.e., Heartifacts. This gave the cute book some depth and discussion, along with Daniel’s plight of not being the rebound. But I had a love/hate relationship with the FMC, Chloe. I either rooted for her or couldn’t stand her and wanted the book to move along. I don’t think she was intended to be so polarizing.

Minus my feelings about Chloe, I enjoyed reading the book. As I already said, I found this book cute. For a YA romance, it will do well. I may not have been the right market.

Thanks, Wednesday Books and Netgalley, for the arc!

Content warning: dementia

This was definitely a very cute read with adorable characters! I think I'm growing out of the target audience range for YA stories so it felt a little bit young for my current tastes but overall the story was great for the intended audience!

This story was a sweet, lighthearted story. This story sounded so interesting and I was so excited to get into it. It was an enjoyable and quick read but I didn't LOVE it. I will definitely read more books by this author in the future, this one just wasn't the one for me! 3 Stars.

I really wanted to love this one. I read about 15 percent in and I just could not get attached to the story or characters. I really appreciate the eARC and hope to be able to read more stories from the publisher in the future. I think this specific story just was not for me. Thank you! I will not post a rating on goodreads as I did not finish the book and do not feel it is fair to rate stories without finishing them.