4.5 stars! I was lucky enough to receive an arc of How To End a Love Story, one of my most anticipated reads of 2024. For those not in the know, the author Yulin Kuang is a screenwriter and director currently working on adapting Emily Henry’s Beach Read. When I heard she was publishing her debut novel, of course it immediately shot to the top of my TBR.

We follow Helen Zhang, the eldest daughter of immigrant parents, who, after writing a popular series of YA novels, heads to LA to oversee and participate in their TV adaptation. To all the world, she seems celebrated and successful, at the top of her game. But Kuang allows us to get so immersed in Helen’s mind that soon, all her fame and success fade into the background and we are left with her rawest form alone; her lingering trauma, her deepest fears, her self-doubt and anxieties. She felt so palpably real, more so than in most romance books I’ve ever read, and this was what made How To End A Love Story so extraordinary.

Enter Grant Shepard, a universally popular writer, renowned for being ‘good in a room’. But, in a similar way to Helen, Kuang uses her skill as a writer to delve so much deeper into Grant’s character until the reader knows him on so much than the superficial level on which everyone else views him.

Set amid the backdrop of Hollywood, its machinations and its glittery, star-studded image, we follow the intertwining narrative of Helen and Grant, from an fatal accident that tied their lives together years ago to their present day journey of discovery and healing. It’s a love story, but it’s so much more (as my favourite romance novels are). I adored how Kuang woven together such complex emotions, such as grief and healing. It also deals with themes of familial expectations and maturing.

Overall, Kuang is such a talented writer that she grabs your heart from the first page, forcing you to care deeply about these, flawed, occasionally unlikeable characters, and doesn’t let go until the very last line.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC! let me know if you’ll be reading How To End A Love Story when it releases April 9 <3

I must admit, I did shed a few tears during this book. It is funny, sexy, sad and it makes you angry in parts.

The characters are all so different but relatable.

How to End a Love Story will definitely go far.

This was a cute book though I couldn't connect with the characters or the story. I loved the storyline and the plot twists but overall, it wasn't a book I enjoyed that much. It is cute but couldn't connect with it and I was very upset about it.
I still recommend this book because I can recognize the potential of it. Besides, it's about a writer!!! Everyone wants to read about something related to books!

Up there with one of the best contemporary romance titles I've read so far for 2024, and will be my go-to rec when customers are asking for something a little more elevated in this genre. This author manages to carry a very heavy premise with a lot of lightness - I was apprehensive it would be a bit of a depressing read but I needn't have worried. Helen and Grant have a lovely dynamic and the story is a really mature and interesting take on 'enemies-to-lovers' - Helen has good reason to hate Grant and watching her feelings for him evolve made for a satisfying read. Getting into the writers' room was also a nice set piece in this story.

This is the only story I have read by Yulin Kuang but I think she may be one of my favourite romance authors. I wasn't sure how the story would play out because the barrier between the two protagonists is so big that it seemed like the only way to get over it was to dismiss/cheapen it. But Kuang handles it with earnestness and sensitivity that the end resolution seems possible. The story has the right balance of romance and life for me. I loved the both Helen and Grant as characters separately but the chemistry they had with each other was so good! I am very excited to see other people enjoy this book and for whatever Yulin Kuang comes out with next!

With lots of smut and emotional baggage, How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang is about two people with a complicated past meeting again thirteen years later for work and falling in love.

Summary: Thirteen years ago, Helen Zhang's sister died after running in front of Grant Shepard's car. She blames him, and her parents hate him. Now, the two meet again to work on adapting her novel. Although Helen initially refuses to get along with him, they form a truce.

Tropes/Genres:
• enemies to lovers
• complicated past
• forced proximity
• workplace romance
• second chance (kind of)
• set in Los Angeles, California

Review: This book is spicy, but there's too much smut. Way too much. After they got over the "enemies" part, they became super horny and were basically doing something sexual every single chapter. It was good at the start, but as it went on, it got annoying. The sex just lost its meaning – it just felt like a book of smut. And, in all honesty, apart from their shared trauma (AKA trauma bonding), that seems to be the only connection Helen and Grant have. They have sexual chemistry but not any other kind. I don't feel a romantic connection between them.

I was deciding between 3 and 4 stars, but I settled on 3 because the writing was just too choppy. The transition from "enemies" to "lovers" was just too quick, and I had to do a double-take when I saw that they were suddenly getting along. It was jarring. The smut makes up for it a little bit, but as it went on for too long, it got irritating.

Helen's character was annoying. I understand why she's the way she is, but she's annoying nonetheless and didn't exactly stop being annoying. There was hardly any character growth in the book apart from her standing up against her parents. It's nice, but it also felt like she was deflecting her responsibility for her own personality by blaming it all on her mother. She treated Grant like shit for most of the book apart from when they were doing the deed and trauma bonding. Like, she's super mean when she's upset. I rolled my eyes when she said she loved Grant because I didn't feel the love at all – I only felt lust. I think the part of her processing her sister's death is good, though. She grew in that aspect.

Grant was pathetic. I'm going to pull a line of his from the book:

"You could keep me your dirty little secret, come to me tasting like other men, I'd still take you back every fucking time. I'd rather have a fraction of you than all of someone else."

Yeah, bye. No thanks. Gross.

He took it back towards the end of the story and said that he wanted all of her, but the damage was done. I don't even understand how the author thought this was romantic when she wrote it. Up until that point, I kinda liked his character. But no thanks. I honestly think he deserves so much better than Helen.

Their relationship, overall, felt toxic. I think it's really nice to see how Helen grew with respect to her blame towards Grant for her sister's death. In fact, the only good parts of this book relate to either her sister's death or the adaptation of her novel. However, apart from the many sex they had and the way fewer nice non-sexual moments, there's nothing good about this pairing.

There were also parts of the story that irritated me, such as drugs and unprotected sex. Look, I have nothing against unprotected sex. Obviously, it's better to have protection, but it's fiction, so I give it some buffer space. But not when you're literally just doing a one-night stand, as it had been intended. The drugs part ("edibles") just came out of nowhere. I don't like how the author portrayed it. I get that recreational cannabis is normalised in America, but it just felt so unnecessary. Surely there are other ways to show Helen getting accepted into the team.

The third-act breakup was also stupid. So stupid. I'm okay with third-act breakups as long as they make sense, but this one just felt like the author's desperate attempt to have a third-act breakup for the sake of having one. BECAUSE DRAMA!!! Um. Yeah. No.

That's not to say that I hated this book. I acknowledge that there are parts that I enjoyed as well, such as the screenwriting process and how Helen slowly opened up to the team. The difference in opinions of the writer herself and the writing team for the adaptation is also interesting to see. Considering the author is adapting Emily Henry's book, she surely knows what she's writing about! So that's cool!

All in all, this book has some merits, but there are also a lot of issues. Overall, if the writing were a little smoother and the plot brushed up a bit, it would've been way better! I think readers who enjoy enemies-to-lovers stories with a dash of a complicated past may enjoy this, though.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the read.

How to End a Love Story is an original emotional love tale of two star crossed lovers connected and separated by their history.

Helen and Grant are complicated characters. Their trauma is handled well in the writing but they regularly get in their own way, which some might find frustrating to read. Not me, I loved the complexity involved in their dynamic and in the relationships they have with their families.

It was also fascinating to learn about adapting books from an author who has written the screenplays to two Emily Henry books.

I do feel at times like jumps between different aspects of the plot was jarring, and the pacing could have been smoothed out a little more. The spice was inserted directly next to trauma, which was a bit of a leap emotionally as a reader, but perhaps that was intentional to match the minds of the characters.

Overall, I am really excited to read anything else Kuang writes and this book was a triumph of a debut.
Content Warnings

Wow wow wow!! Complex main characters with a trauma bond and an invisible string theory type romance. It captured modern women navigating growing up in a traditional culture whilst handling grief and love- emotions suppressed. I love a romance book where no one changes to fit their partner and they just fit together instead and that’s what this was. An enjoyable and powerful read.

This book took me a bit by surprise and I absolutely loved it. This is a heart breaking and romantic story that follows Helen as she moves to L.A to work on the screen adaption of her very successful book series. One of the screen writers is Grant who she went to school with and was involved in the tragic death of Helen's sister as a teenager. Ultimately they must learn to move past their tragic history and work together to make this series. I felt the process of them becoming friends and developing feelings was done in a really clever and sensitive ways that approached their background and personal issues really well. There was lots of conflicted feelings, emotions and angst and I was swept up in their relationship. Despite the heavier background to the relationshio the characters also had great humour and chemistry. I also really enjoyed seeing the behind the scenes process of adapting a book into a tv series.
Overall a really emotional and moving story that I could not put down.

Wow. I honestly wasn't expecting this book to be so absolutely fantastic!

Helen is an author who's book series is to be made into a series. Moving to LA to join the screenwriter group for her show, she meets Grant, although she knows him from her past - he killed her sister.

Heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure, their chemistry, history and relationship had me hooked straight away. The characters were written in such a beautiful way that I couldn't help but be invested in them and hoping for their happy ending together.

"I love the parts of you I haven't even met yet." *swoon*

One of the best romances I've read in a while, I'll definitely be recommending this.

To say this was a bumpy road, would be the understatement of the year. Helen and Grant have a very uncommon and mostly complicated history, but when they have to work together on what might be the biggest project of Helen's life so far, things get interesting. The first half of the book was so easy to read while the topics were definitely not so light. I think Yulin Kuang managed to create a perfect balance between the light and the dark, but somehow I couldn't entirely attach to the characters. It got a bit repetitive and I lost focus. Luckily, in the last part, that all came back and the story came to a beautiful conclusion. I would have loved to read a bit more about the situation in the end, but the letters to Helen's sister were definitely a great addition to the book and the story in itself.

From the start I was blown away by the writing in this book - it was just so well written, both heartbreaking and hilarious in all the right places.

I loved the background insight into book to TV adaptation, and the whole setting was so enjoyable and provided some fantastic side characters.

Grant is the ultimate book boyfriend - his obsession with Helen is just *chefs kiss*. That is a man in love and his patience for her is incredible.

Explaining the plot of this to a friend made me realise just how crazy the premise is, but Kuang makes it work in the most beautiful way.

Big thanks to NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for the ARC.

Helen Zhang had a troubled childhood after her younger sister Michelle committed suicide by jumping in front of a moving car driven by one of the students at their school. Now a successful novelist, she has written a YA angsty series set in a boarding school. Now her series is being made into a TV series and she has been flown from New York to California to sit in with the screenwriters as they adapt her novels. Helen has always been a nerd and an over-achiever, she had very few friends at school and even now, thirteen years later, she only has a couple of close friends, although she worries that her recent success may have alienated even them. To add to her woes, Helen is struggling to find new ideas for her YA series and can't seem to start anything new.

Grant Shephard is a Hollywood screenwriter with movie star looks whose life was drastically altered when his car hit and killed Michelle Zhang when he was just a teenager. While everyone agrees it wasn't his fault, ever since then he has suffered from crippling anxiety attacks.

It was inevitable that Grant should be the second screenwriter for Helen's TV series, despite her attempts to get rid of him Grant insists on staying. Right from the start they butt heads on everything, Grant is the team member that everyone likes, he's charming and thoughtful whereas Helen finds it difficult to express her opinions without sounding rude, as a solitary writer she finds the collective hive mind of the writer's room alien.

Yet despite the antagonism sparks start to fly ... but what hope is there for Helen and Grant when her parents still haven't forgiven him for Michelle's death?

I liked this but I didn't love it and I found the effusive reviews from other authors to be a bit puzzling TBH.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

As soon as I saw that the author was involved in the adaptations of Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation, I knew that her debut novel was going to be a must-read for me! And if that wasn't enough, it came with recommendations from both Emily Henry and Beth O'Leary <3

OMG!!! This story has been so intense, a total roller coaster of emotions. Helen and Grant are two complex but amazing characters. I loved both of them and the development of their relationship... simply perfect. It's not your typical romance novel where you can predict everything from the beginning, and I think that has been a very important factor in why I enjoyed reading it so much. It pleasantly surprised me, and I will definitely be reading Yulin's future works.

☆ Thanks to Yulin Kuang, Hodder & Stoughton, and NetGalley for the ARC ☆

I had such high hopes for a romance novel from the screenwriter and director of Emily Henry's books, and maybe that ruined the experience for me, because I couldn't help but compare. And this fell really flat in comparison. I don't think it was actually bad, but it was just not landing for me, and I felt bored. This is why I decided to DNF.

I really enjoyed this story- I thought the premise with Helen’s sister was so clever. It made the untangling of Helen’s approaches to relationships clever and less straightforward than a girl meets old high school crush story. I really liked both Helen and Grant as individual people so was definitely gunning for them to get together. Having it all set against the screenwriting was also really interesting as I’ve not read much about that before. Lots of good steamy bits too! Thoroughly enjoyed

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an opportunity to read this ARC.

I loved this book. The two main characters were absolutely perfect. I felt that their relationship was developed at an excellent pace, and the YEARNING was impeccable.

If you like books from Kennedy Ryan, Helen Hoang and Abbey Jimenez, you will probably really enjoy this book. How to End a Love Story will break your heart and put it back together again, better than it was before.

On the one hand, I enjoyed this book. It was dark, twisty, emotional, and devastating but still held light. There is love in these pages in many different facets. Helen and Grant's relationship was difficult, painful and gripping. there was so much love and affection wrapped up in past pain and trauma. It felt real.

On the other hand, I didn't enjoy the third-person point of view. I found it challenging to engage with the characters and feel what they were feeling, everything I felt was from an outside perspective, and I only experienced a small percentage of the emotions that should have been pouring from these pages.

One thing that bugged me, but I could also understand, was how much the characters kept talking and thinking about high school. i wished they had been more present in the first 1/3 of the book, but the rest of the story does make up for it. Overall, it is a deeply emotional and challenging read, not for the faint of heart but rewarding when you make it to the end.

How to End a Love Story by Yulia Kuang is a truly enjoyable read. You'll soon be swept away by the characters and their deep connections. It was so much fun to watch them fall in love, despite their troubles.

As soon as I started reading, I could not stop. I particularly loved the underlying theme revolving around grief over the loss of a loved one. Helen's pain and struggle with grief over her sister's death, combined the sometimes complicated nature of sibling relationships, was so realistic and heartbreaking to read and it brought me to tears more than once.

Helen's relationship with her parents really resonated with me and the casual mentions of Chinese culture and upbringing was a delight to read. Seeing these touches that are so close to my heart and so familiar to me in a book (especially how Chinese families express love to one another) made me feel so seen.

The romance between Helen and Grant was interesting to see unfold and captured my attention from the start. However, if I had one qualm about it, it would be perhaps the leads went from enemies to lovers just a tad bit too quickly for my taste, but their chemistry and the difficult situation they're in due to their tragic past was intriguing and had me hooked.

How to End a Love Story made me laugh, it made me cry (a lot, and in a good way!!), it made me kick my feet like a giddy kid, and overall it was an incredibly enjoyable read.