I don't think this book was my taste. I had a hard time visualizing all of the art, which made enjoying the book really difficult. I think Chen has talent but this was a miss for me.

This is a very cute and sweet story about friendships and relationships. It is told through art.

This is perfect if you would like a nice quick easy and enjoyable fluffy read. You'll whiz through this book and enjoy it if you like sentimental charm in a YA Novel.

Give this novel a try!

Thank you to st martins press, NetGalley and Wednesday book for this arc.

What a cute take on a YA romance!

Mini synopsis: inspiration strikes when newly dumped Chloe receives her breakup box in the mail from her ex. The idea? An art display of relationships. Can she pull it off? Will she ever get over her ex?

This was cute! I want to say I enjoyed the story and the characters. The plot moved along smoothly and i think everything the characters went thru together made a lot of sense. I really enjoyed the mix of physical art with Chloe’s project along side a short story filme with Daniel’s project. I liked seeing the intersection of two art forms. I also enjoyed the idea of the art exhibit. I think it’s a genius idea and i could totally see myself going to that!

Now for my critics. There was alot going on and i think some of the plot lines kind of got lost in the mix. My example here is the group working together to figure out what the missing recipe was. Maybe it’s just me but i didn’t love that storyline & it felt kind of thrown in for no real reason. Another thing that i didn’t enjoy was the scene where Daniel took Chloe to a performance art show. She was very judgey and a little rude with him and talked a lot of crap about that art form. For someone so into art and wanting to make sure everyone was seen, it felt like a weird take away that didn’t fit with her personality.

Overall, i enjoyed this author and their writing style so I will keep my eye out for their next book!

When Chloe gets dumped in the worst way ever, she decides instead of getting rid of her box of memories, she’s by other heart broken individuals memory boxes and make an art exhibit for all to see. But when Daniel decides he thinks it’s funny to film his reaction to his ex’s box, Chloe and him hit an intense standoff. He isn’t ready to add another ex to his list and she isn’t ready to see her ex with another girl, so these two decide to help each other out and put aside their hate for each other.

This was a cute light hearted YA romance. It definitely felt fitting for characters having boxes of exes just collecting and wondering what to do with them. Chloe is very artistic and taking broken things and making it into art was really unique and cool. Daniel is very guarded in himself but also a little competitive in ways.

This was my first book by this author and I honestly can’t wait for her next. It felt real and imaginative. Thank you so much to Wednesday books for a copy!

I CANNOT WAIT TO ADD THIS CUTIE TO MY CLASSROOM LIBRARY OMG! This was the cutest! Daniel and Chloe were so much fun to read about and I absolutely loved their journey.

Thank you to the author and net galley for the opportunity to review this book. I found the art in all forms to be so interesting, creative, and wonderful! Unfortunately this book was a bit more juvenile that I was expecting even for a YA. I would not recommend it to friends unless that is their preference in genre, I would however buy this book for my daughter once she’s in middle school or early high school. I feel it could foster her creativity and it was rich in culture which i loved. I found the characters a bit hard to relate to at my age but especially Daniel, he was a bit too angsty for me to root for as a love interest at times. Over all though I did enjoy most of this book. The art and creativeness of this book really carried it for me.

This cover is just do cute. Chloe is dumped with a shoebox in the mail. Right after she meets Francesca who has also just experienced a terrible breakup. This gets her thinking of an art installation. She sends out a request via Instagram for breakup boxes and the stories that come with them. She creates Heartifacts. During the first showing she meets Daniel. Is she over her ex and ready to start a new relationship? We have all been where Chloe is. Experiencing heartbreak and just wishing it would stop. Chloe grows so much in this book. She makes so many new friends while learning how she wants to work in this world. I cannot wait to read more by this author. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the arc on exchange for my honest review.

cute book about friendships, relationships, and art. the dialogues were a little cringey and surface-level at times but otherwise a quick, fun read!

Jennifer Chen's ARTIFACTS OF AN EX is cute enough. Daniel and Chloe are adorable, and I love the development of their relationship. But most of all, I love how well the novel grasps how difficult it is to sometimes get over someone, and all the cringey things we might do to get back together with that someone. ARTIFACTS OF AN EX gives a realistic and healthy picture of the time and effort it can sometimes take to truly overcome heartbreak and move on. Overall, the novel is just well-executed. Good plot development/arc. Good characters. I'd read Chen's next book in a heartbeat.

what an adorable YA romance! this is the perfect book to sit down with when you want to spend the afternoon reading something light & fun.

I enjoyed this book, but I will say there was not much depth. it was a cute story, if not the kind that I will likely forget pretty soon. nevertheless, this scratched the itch of "I want something easy to read that is going to make me smile & giggle"

art is a big theme in this book, and I think that if I'd been more of an "art" person I would've connected with Chloe on a different level and liked the book more. I love the crush Daniel harbored on Chloe (I'm such a sucker for the "I've always liked her but I will not tell her" trope).

I wish there'd been more angst between them... and that Chloe would've realized how much Daniel cared instead of pining and pining for her ex. alas.... 3 stars.

This was so cute with the young romance but also had lots of topics that are hard but a lot of teens deal with.
Chloe is adjusting after moving from NY to LA, that's a major culture shock, very different.
She's a young art curator, very good at organizing and planning. Even has her own planning social media account with a major following.
She has a great idea to showcase breakups cause most people collect little things and end up with a box of memories of events that only mean something to the two of them.
Chloe had to move cause her grandmother had a fall and she is also suffering from dementia or something similar.
Loved how the guy she didn't like at first was the guy that had been visiting his grandma and he was sweet and artistic. But he always seems to date girls who are rebounding and gets his heart broken. Chloe is interested in Daniel but he's hesitant.
Loved the art shows, the ideas, the heartifacts idea, I love human condition and experience exhibits. The food! The family relationships and the friends groups that were very supportive.

Def check out if you like ya rom coms with an art scene.

Thank you wednesdaybooks for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

Thank you to netgalley for my early copy of this novel.
I had high hopes for this book but unfortunately the characters and plot fell a little flat for me. I liked the idea of the Heartifacts project and how all of the main characters were very artsy and creative.

For the romantic relationship between our main characters, it felt a little forced to me and I wasn’t totally convinced that Chloe was completely over her ex when she and Daniel got together. I feel like the book glazed over a little bit of the fact that you can like/be into more than one person at once and her concept of romance just felt a little young for me.

I would totally read another book from this author and I think as she writes more (this is a debut I think?) I think that her characters and plot will get better.

So, in this book, Chloe finds out about her breakup with Jake through a box he sent her at her new home in LA. She then gets the idea of creating an exhibition of boxes with objects that tell stories of heartbreaks. That's where she meets Daniel, who has never been in a relationship but has experienced heartbreaks in the past. Despite Chloe's interest in him, he doesn't want to date her and cause her another heartbreak.

In my opinion, the idea of the "Heartifacts" exhibition is fascinating, but I didn't find the book interesting enough. It would have been much more enjoyable to attend such an exhibition in real life and hear real stories of heartbreaks. The book had too many details about a fictitious exhibit and fake relationships. Although I know it's fiction, I just couldn't get into it. Anyway, the last 10% of the book focuses on the final version of the exhibition, and Chloe and Daniel's relationship is already resolved.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for my ARC in exchange for an honest review. This was okay! Nothing bad but nothing I LOVED either.

Thank you netgalley and wednesday books for an arc of this book in exchange for my honest review!

rating: 4.25 stars out of 5

This book was not only so fun and adorable, but also pretty diverse which I appreciated on a whole new level. I read this in between two very heavy books, so it was a perfect book to not only keep me out of a reading slump, but I had such an enjoyable time with it.

3.75/5

I liked this book, it's cute and like discovering teenage joy for the first time all over again, it's a clean romance, and there are mentions of sex but no actual scenes.

Chloe's journey is one I understand so much, losing your way about something and struggling to find your way back to the original goal, she aced it though, and OMG THAT ROMANTIC GESTURE IS EVERYTHING.

the reason I'm giving this book a 3.75 instead of a 4 or a 5 is that there was something about this book that didn't talk to me and the fact that Chloe kept going back to Jake, it is her first break up and I guess everyone deals with it differently but still, it just didn't make sense to me.

overall it's a good book if you want a clean cutesy romance, with a lot of representation.

DNF'd @40%.

I wanted to like this book and thought the first 10-15% was cute and fun but then it just became very cringey and childish. It's way too childlike in the writing for it to be a YA and I c an't be in Chloe's head anymore.
 
Thank you Netgalley, St. Martin's Press, and Wednesday Books for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I really wanted to like this one and went in with high expectations. The synopsis made it sound right up my alley and the overall story/plot was good but this book was just not for me. I liked Daniel but I wasn’t a fan of Chloe or her planning stuff and I also didn’t feel like things flowed smoothly either so maybe the pacing was off for me? I still think fans of ya romcoms should give this one a try, just because it didn’t work for me doesn’t mean other won’t love it.

So here's a review for "Artifacts of an Ex" by Jennifer Chen in its barest skeleton.
The Well-Dones:
🍨The ideas for exhibitions that the characters come up with and that are described are pretty cool. I thought the ideas were so fascinating, I even came up with my own little art gallery idea: Artifacts of a Teacher (from students who are bored in class). Mines would include a Ziploc bag filled with hand sanitizer, a box of napkins with the sides of the box undone, and more.
🍨 The level of details to which the male and female protagonists are WHO they are. It's not something I can describe well but essentially, they are well fleshed out characters.

The Need-to-Improves:
🍨 The supporting characters felt very one dimensional and not their own people living their own lives. Selena, our female protagonist 's best friend from NYC, was very much there to fill in the BFF slot. Francesca was there to fill in the new friend slot/position. It was not as well fleshed out.

🍨 The progressive ideas in the book felt very forced. It just feels very yay-we're-all-progressive-here! Every character felt like a token representation for some underrepresented group or other. It took away from the focus of the book, in my opinion. But it's what also made it legitimately LA, also in my opinion.

🍨 The book felt like it was written by someone who knew the ins and outs of LA and it's culture but could not figure out the NYC culture. The few references made to NYC sounded very much like things someone outside the city would say. It made the characters less authentic.

🍨 You know how authors try to insert new language that social media influencers popularize? Yeah this was definitely one of those books doing that and it bothered me to no end. The characters would start out speaking standard English and then switch to AAVE all of a sudden and it drove. Me. Nuts.

I don't mean any of this in a negative light. This was simply my experience with the book. Overall, actually a light hearted read.

Rate: 🌟🌟🌟💫/5

Artifacts of An Ex is a sweet teen love story enriched by elements of culture, family, and art. The descriptions of the art pieces were so well done: I could easily picture them. The stories of family were relatable, even though I'm from a different culture with differing practices. The themes of breakup and young love are accessible to nearly everyone and brought me back to my first love story. At the end of the book, the only thing I"m left wanting is a recipe for Ahma's pineapple cake!