Grief creates holes. You believe being a good person can fill it, regrets can erase them, and trauma-bonding can ease it.
I liked how our main character wasn't trying to fill her sister's absence. She did her own thing while grappling with her parent's vice-grip hovering. Our male main character fell head first. I love when the man falls first. I just wish she had more faith in herself.
Filled with grief, longing, healing and letting go, this gripped me from beginning to end.

4.5 rounded up! out 09 April!!

Kuang really hit the ground running with this incredible story. Her writing pulls you in quick and keeps you invested and eager to follow the story of Helen & Grant. Helen and Grant are connected by a tragedy that happened in high school, and who are now having to work closely in the writing room of Helen's book series turned TV series. Helen and Grant, based off of their pasts, and even based on what kind of crowds they ran with in high school, really should not be together. And yet they are pulled towards one another, discovering something truly tender and once-in-a-lifetime between them.

If I were going to convince you to read this, my main selling point would be the BANTER! the conversations between them!! These characters are funny, witty and REAL. I will read anything that Kuang writes just based off of this novel and the dialogue between these two characters.

Thank you so much to netgalley and Avon for an eARC of this book.

This book was hotly anticipated as Kuang is also the screenwriter and director for two of Emily Henry’s forthcoming movie adaptations! It centers on two screenwriters in LA who have an event in their past that connects them. This book is for all the romance girlies who love the angst with a healthy dash of steam. The writing was really excellent and it went much deeper in emotion and character than your average romance novel. I think this one is going to be very big and we’re lucky to have such a sure hand so involved in the romance genre in both book and screen. Out 4/9! Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for sending me an early copy to review!

😍😍😍😭😭😭

I cried at a low-key confession of love, and I am still weeping inside. Also, I loved seeing a line about kissing in the rain, since that webseries introduced me to Kuang.

I have been excited for this book for months because I adored Yulin Kuang's webseries and short films work. Her debut novel is heartwrenching and joyful and sexy and lovely. I love her writing, and I should not be surprised at any of this!

The book opens with teenage Helen's little sister Michelle's funeral. Michelle committed suicide by running into traffic, and their classmate Grant was driving the car that hit her. Helen and her parents hate Grant for it. Then years later, Helen is a bestselling author of a book series that I imagine to be kind of like Pretty Little Liars, and the series is going to be adapted into a prestige tv show. And surprise surprise, Grant is hired as one of the writers. Helen and Grant are both still dealing with VERY unresolved grief and trauma from Michelle's death, and things get complicated as they start to realize their attraction to each other.

I loved watching these deeply flawed, deeply hurting characters learn to trust and learn to love. I loved getting some of my favorite tropes (you can tell Kuang is from the fanfic world because she writes YEARNING and GLANCES so well, she has such great emotional buildup). Some really wonderful steamy scenes. And I laughed so much in the light moments of the last chapter. I absolutely will be buying a copy of this book.

CW for this book, as mentioned in an Author's Note that I appreciated seeing, are discussions of a character's suicide, death of a sibling, drug use, panic attacks.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for this ARC.

3.5⭐️ 2🌶️

Many mixed feelings on this book.

On the one hand, things I liked:
- I loved seeing and supporting a Chinese-American author. It was actually so lovely to see myself on the page. I think she was really able to capture the nuances of our culture (i.e. relationship with her parents, the experience of not knowing the language, expression of love, etc) however some of the elements with the representation felt slightly stereotyped to me. In any case, it was really cool to have a female protagonist "look" like me.
- I really liked the complex relationship that Helen had with her feelings about her sister and her grief with her sister. You could tell that she was really just so young when her sister died and it was cool to see how those feelings translated to adult life.
- Spice!! The scenes were well written and didn't feel forced or excessive.

On the other, things I didn't like:
- The writing. It was written poorly, per se. I just think a lot of the writing felt more like a screenplay than a book. It was written in dual-POV 3rd person, which is fine.... but it was weird to have the book "tell" me how the character is feeling (i.e. "she felt like..." "she was thinking..."). I really didn't like this aspect and I feel like it took me out of the story a little bit. The POV also shifted often and the way it was written made it difficult to tell whose POV we were in.
- Helen and Grant's early relationship. I think there was just a lack of tension here. It felt kind of like an instant love sort of deal, and I feel like we completely washed over the fact that he "killed" her sister. It just seemed weird to me that there wasn't really any hesitation in attraction from Helen's end on being with Grant. It also seemed like Grant was just instantly enamored with Helen when they really had nothing in common at all despite their past. Grant was not interested in being on the show at all in the beginning and it felt like all of sudden he was super dedicated to the story, and this aspect just didn't seem believable.
- Her relationship with her parents. I think honestly this was just the most lacking aspect of the story. Clearly Helen wants her parents approval. She feels pressure to be a "good daughter" which is on par for the Chinese-American experience. But I really didn't like that this is what ultimately caused the 3rd act breakup. I also just hated that we didn't really get any resolution here. Her parents found out and they broke up and then she was mad at her parents, they got back together, and then all of a sudden her parents were at the wedding and it was fine. We didn't get any resolution for the family on Michelle's death. We didn't get a follow through here and I just felt like the story needed it.
- Helen being an author turned screenwriter. To be honest I'm still confused on what her book is about. Also did she end up writing an episode for the show? This was truly just kind of unclear.

Overall, I thought this was a cute book. It felt like a slow start but once I got reading I was able to tear through it pretty quickly. I loved the representation and I think there was a lot of potential for the storyline, but overall it fell a bit flat for me and left me wanting more. Bonus points because of the representation and also knowing this was a debut. Would likely buy a physical copy for the shelf and would definitely want to read the next book Yulin writes!

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC of this!

Sexy, smart, and now one of my favorite Romances of the year (and probably every other year too). This book will break you apart and put you back together again.

Helen and Grant are inextricably linked by a horrible tragedy from their senior year of high school. For the 13 years since, they haven’t spoken and have lived on opposite ends of the country. Now, Helen is a successful YA author whose books are being adapted into a tv show… and Grant just happens to be one of the show’s writers.

I’ve read some RomComs in the past where the reason the couple might not have their Happily Ever After feels contrived or even a little silly. Not so here. I absolutely had no idea how Grant and Helen were going to figure this out and I was completely invested from the first sentence to the last. Brilliant!

The romantic plotting in this is truly wondrous to behold. It’s not a slowburn in the sense that nothing is happening, but it’s a slowburn in the way that *every single thing* that’s happening feels earth-shatteringly sexy. What I’m saying is, this book is HOT. Scalding. Handle with care. And by that I of course mean: read it immediately.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for providing this ARC in exchange for my review!

“He keeps drawing a slow circle around her ankle bone, unwilling to break contact completely—he feels like he’s just started a new favorite book and he can’t put it down or he’ll lose his place.”

The pining, the romance, the angst, the tortured trauma, Grant Shepard…be still my heart. That man. He’s top tier and the amount of lines I highlighted alone from him. Your honor, I’m in love with him.

You can tell Yulin has talent in storytelling right off the bat, her writing style is gorgeous and flows so well. The story starts with tragedy and a true contemporary enemies to lovers, but the longing from it with Helen and Grant is ADMIRABLE and when those sparks fly, they flyyyyyy.

I’ve never seen steam written off the pages so well that you can feel it. There’s also NO miscommunication in this but straight, direct, forward communication for what they want. Except of course- denying of feelings, deep rooted trauma that stops you from getting what you want and deserve, and the occasional frustrating characters in a love story! Trauma bonding, perhaps? Yes. I loved Helen and Grant and the realistic flaws of their characters, as well as their development. “You feel a lot of responsibility for other people’s feelings” - moments where I felt like Helen.

Ugh I know I’m back with this but I just loved Grant so much???????? Be still, my heart. I’ll come back with a coherent thought to my review maybe later when I can stop thinking about him. But he’s literally the reason why woman fall in love with fictional men and can’t find them off the page.

Trigger warnings: death, suicide, death of family/sibling, grief.

“She’s terrified of it. She’s terrified that she’s incapable of wanting something and getting it, of real life obliterating perfect weather and happy endings if she goes on for an extra chapter, or even an extra sentence. That just means you really want it, she reminds herself, as her heart hammers in agreement.”

“I don’t want to be healthy,” Grant says, and his chest is heaving as if he’s just run a marathon. “I just want you.”

Helen and Grant were irreversibly linked to each other during their senior year of high school, when Helen's 16 year old sister, Michelle, committed suicide by throwing herself in front of Grant's car. They didn't know each other well before, and they certainly didn't become friends in the aftermath, but they both thought of the other often over the years as they tried to navigate life after trauma and loss. The story takes place 13 years later, when they end up in a writer's room together adapting Helen's bestselling YA fantasy series into a TV show.

Now, despite an obviously angsty premise, the drama in this is not over the top, in my opinion. It is angsty and sad and full of grief and forgiveness, but to an appropriate, realistic degree. Helen and Grant's relationship grows very believably from shock and trepidation, to begrudging mutual admiration, to lusty but still genuine friendship, to head over heels in love.

In the first few chapters, I struggled with the dual POV third-person style. It was sometimes confusing, especially when Helen and Grant were in dialogue with each other, to try and remember whose POV I was reading. It made me feel emotionally detached when all I wanted was to dive into the emotions headfirst. However — and I fully acknowledge I might just be emulating my junior year AP Lit teacher here with this "the curtains are blue as a metaphor for the character's suffering" bullshit — as I got to know Helen and Grant better, it made a weird kind of sense. I feel like they often witness themselves in the third person in a way, like they're experiencing their own lives and interactions almost voyeuristically. And there are a small handful of emotionally charged moments where Kuang suddenly switches to second person — not first — forcing the reader into the role of Helen, which, at the risk of sounding unbelievably pretentious, I just think is absolutely brilliant, singular, inspired.

And Kuang has that rare talent to unexpectedly catapult your heart into your throat by randomly putting into words feelings or sensations that you've experienced, which you've never even thought to try and put into words yourself, but that you would've expected if you did that no one else would understand what you meant.

I found a new favorite and a new auto-buy author. Getting this book early for free was barely even an advantage, because I already know I'm going to buy two physical copies so I can mark up one of them. Fans of Emily Henry, Hannah Bonam Young, and Ashley Poston are going to absolutely eat this story up.

I don't read much romance these days but chose this as a possible addition to my list of books with Celebrity Romance. My mistake; these main characters are not really celebs, more celebrity-adjacent.

PROS:
+ HTEALS had the same writers' room camaraderie I LOVED in Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld.
+ Interesting premise, though hard to pull off. Not a spoiler: the main character has believed that the love interest killed her sister for years. Seriously, that's dark. Maybe this should have been a thriller, not a romance.

CONS:
- There was something in the writing/dialogue that felt distancing to me. Maybe it was the third person. I didn't get that immersive romance reading feel that I always hope for.
- This kind of intense and very dark hate-to-love plot is HARD to pull off. Like really hard. Respect to the author for tackling such a tough premise but I don't think it quite got there for me.

While I don't think there was anything amazingly new and different with How to End a Love Story, it sure was steamy!! It was a breeze to read, and I loved getting a sneak peek at what happens behind the scenes of the adaptation of a book to a TV series! I thought it was interesting to have such a serious plot line at the heart of what was otherwise a fairly predictable romance, and it made it somehow more realistic and less realistic at the same time. As you would expect from a novel written by a screenwriter, I can totally see this turned into a great movie! I look forward to seeing what Kuang comes out with next!

This was easily my favorite book I've read so far this year! I have so many emotions and love for it!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the advanced copy of this book.
The book centers on Helen, an YA book author who is temporarily moves to LA to help write the scripts for the TV adaptation of her book series. She discovers that one of the other writers is Grant, who was tragically the person who hit and killed her sister thirteen years prior when they were teenagers. Even though it was an accident and not Grant's fault, there is obviously so much heavy tension and emotions from the trauma they've both endured in different ways.
Their relationship slowly builds from cold colleagues to friends, and then to so much more.
The book is extremely deep and complex. The author talks about death in such a brutally honest and refreshing way. It goes back and forth between funny and devastating. How there can be anger along with grief.
There were so many amazing, thought-provoking, and powerful lines that made me feel every emotion.
The characters are complex, flawed, and wonderful. I absolutely loved this book! It reminds me of a Emily Henry romance with another level of complexity, sadness, and love.
I can't recommend this book enough! It is every feeling. One of those books you will feel sad when you finish it because it's over and you know it will be hard to beat and compare to. I can't wait to read more by this author. Thank you again for the chance to read it!

4.5 stars!

While I've never heard of Yulin Kuang before, there's a big chance that I've seen her work on the screen. She's a seasoned Hollywood writer, and now has her debut novel How to End a Love Story under her belt. And I'm so thankful netgalley exchanged it with me for an honest review.

What an amazing book this is! While it's a romance, it's a story like none other and it's so well done.

It starts out at the funeral of Helen's sister Michelle, who commits suicide by jumping in front of Grant Shepard's car. Tragic to say the least.

About ten years later, a million in one chance, and Helen and Grant are reunited across the country in L.A. in a writers room. Helen is having her popular books turned into a series, and Grant just happens to be one of the showrunners. Both are talented in their own right, though both struggle with their insecurities of what happened in the past.

While initially I deemed Grant as a jerk, I quickly root for this couple. It takes place from both of their points of view, quickly if you don't pay attention, and it works out well. The connection between the two is strong, as they attempt to fight off both the attraction and the demons that have faced their past.

Yes, it's a romance, and a steamy one - so look out for those scenes!, but it's also about loving one self after tragedy, learning to accept their professional lifestyles, friendships, and family. As a fellow Chinese American, I can relate to Helen's struggles with her parents. They have never truly got over the loss of their daughter, and don't know how to love Helen the way she needs to be loved.

"I heal and move on, I’m worried I’ll finally lose you for good. But I want to be healthy. And I want to be happy, though I’ve never trusted happiness. To me, happiness is a fleeting, heartbeat-to-heartbeat experience that comes and goes and hopefully comes back. I worry happily-ever-afters don’t exist for people like us."

While we know what's going to happen, and the way Kuang has the characters develop and mold is a thing to behold. Her writing is impeccable. She has a keen ability to create characters we root for, knowing their flaws and issues. It's never cheesy, like many romance novels can be, instead the characters are all believable, and there's a lot of heart to be heard. They learn to fix each other, and their love is unmatched.

“I don’t want to be healthy,” Grant says, and his chest is heaving as if he’s just run a marathon. “I just want you.”

"The kind of woman who deserves Grant would have known what she had when she had it, and wouldn’t have waited until weeks later to weep and wallow over the loss of him in a bathtub for so long, she now knows what her toes would look like if she drowned. The kind of woman who deserves Grant would be capable of the kind of love that keeps little sisters alive."

Can't wait for whatever Kuang does next! (Emily Henry books into series!)

Thanks to Avon and Harper Voyager and NetGalley for a copy in exchange of an honest review .
What a debut! This love story was born in a difficult context, after a traumatic and sad event that occurred years earlier,
but despite this the dynamic between Helen and Grant is explosive, at times funny, and a little hot. Truly Recommended!

I heard about this book from instagram, i found out that Yulin Kuang and Emily Henry are working together on the movie adaptations of one of Emily's book.
So, I'm big fan of EH and and I applied for this book as soon as I saw it was available on Netgalley, but what I didn't expect was the emotional journey that was there to ambush me.
Brava to Yulin! I didn't expect a roller coaster of emotions. I cried a LOT, Grant and Helen are so sweet, and their story is heart-warming, truly!
This is definitely not a "light" story, yes like i said, it is a love story, but not an easy one.
13 years ago during high school, Helen’s younger sister, Michelle, committed suicide by running in front of Grant Shepard’s car.
My heart sank. What a sad start. The characterization of the characters is well developed, even if at the beginning I didn't really sympathize with Helen, little by little I started to grow fond of her, understand her, cheer for her and hope for an happy ending.
Helen and Grant met, or re-met, after some years, he is a screenwriter, and he is selected to work on the television series adaptation
of Helen's book.
Although their past is not easy, and it is intertwined with a sad event, their chemistry is very strong and undeniable, the dialogues
are flowing and funny.
The fireworks are inevitable. I'm very happy to have had the chance to read this author as a preview, and above all I hope there will be other novels, because this is truly a promising debut!

Thanks to the author, Avon and Harper Voyager, and Net Galley for a copy in exchange of an honest review .

How to End a Love Story is about Helen, a writer who moves to LA to work on the screen adaptation of her book. She reconnects with Grant, the former homecoming king of her high school. Grant was also driving the vehicle Helen’s sister jumped in front of 14 years earlier when taking her own life.

Understandably, this book was full of all the content warnings. Some parts were difficult for me to read, and I had difficulty connecting with the characters. The last fifth of the book was my favorite, and I felt that it wasn’t until then that I truly understood Helen’s difficult family dynamic with her parents.

A sincere thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the electronic arc of How to End a Love Story in exchange for an unbiased review. All thoughts are my own.

This book was amazing! The romance was spicy, the tension was incredible, the characters were engaging, and the story was emotional. I laughed and cried throughout the story, and I am now obsessed with the main characters! The romance was so cute and I loved to see them grow together! This had everything I love from an Emily Henry novel, and I can see Yulin Kuang becoming an auto-buy author! I can't wait to read whatever she writes next!

Thank you to Netgalley and Avon for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Sad, sexy, sweeping. This book made me swoon, laugh, and ache in quick succession. I loved how big and cinematic the story ended up feeling, and the writers room details that Kuang infused felt real and reverent.

[arc review]
Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
How to End a Love Story releases April 2, 2024

4.5

13 years ago during high school, Helen’s younger sister committed suicide by running in front of Grant Shepard’s SUV.
Now, Helen and Grant’s lives cross paths when Grant is optioned to be a screenwriter for Helen’s young adult books, which are being turned into a tv series.

These were two characters that were very obviously hurting and were greatly impacted by Michelle’s death in their own ways, which ended up snowballing into neither of them being able to commit to friendships or romantic relationships.
What’s special is that breakthrough moment in the book where all of that animosity starts to dissolve.

At first, Helen’s personality doesn’t exactly shine through and you’re teetering on the edge wondering if she’ll be a buzzkill the entire time, but their writers retreat offered the necessary comical relief, and I really started to enjoy this after the icebreaker of taking edibles while hiking.

The amount of tension and angst was scorching and had me in a complete vise grip!
I really liked the parts where the characters struggled with the concept of loving people but being unable to vocalize it because of it not being a common occurrence growing up — it’s raw, real, and relatable.
Was their relationship trauma bonding? Yeah, I suppose… but it worked, and it was equally wholesome and painful which seems to be a favourite for me.

cw: grief, multiple on-page panic attacks, trauma, suicide, car accident

<i>You're so easy to love, Helen.</i>

Helen Zhang, a bestselling YA novelist, is thirteen years removed from the suicide of her sister - a tragedy that will forever link her to Grant Shepard. She's succeeded at building a fortress around her heart, but when her and Grant are thrust back into each other's worlds in the writer's room for the adaptation of Helen's novels, her carefully constructed walls begin to show cracks.

Helen is truly a character study in resilience and depth. She goes on a powerful and poignant journey through grief and self-discovery. Grant is layered and compelling - exactly the way that I like my love interests. The dynamic between Helen and Grant is filled with so much tension that you can't help but root for them, despite their painful past.

This isn't just a book - it's a masterclass in blending the complex, the tragic, and the beautiful into a contemporary romance that grips you by the heart and will not let go. It's clear that Kuang has brought her screenwriting past into her literary debut - the dialogue here is sharp, the scenes she paints are vivid, and the journey each of the characters take is both sensitive and nuanced. Not to mention... this is STEAMY. No closed doors here! The ending is also incredibly satisfying and feels totally earned and true to the characters she has created.

This is a beautifully written and deeply affecting story that will stay with me for a long time - an easy 5 stars.

This book is out 4/2. Thank you to Yulin Kuang, Avon Books, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I loved watching both Grant and Helen discover themselves and their relationship from their past high school lives. Very character driven. The ending felt a bit rushed but was still a great read and would recommend!!