Such a cute book about cringey and often hilarious break up moments. It’s relatable and a short read. The format was a little odd on my Kindle, but I was able to understand the flow. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC for an honest review.

Review Well, this was a speed-read. I flipped through it within a couple of hours.
It is hilarious, there's no doubt about it. Perhaps a little more hyperbole wouldn't hurt. I would think breaking up could get sassier, and more creative, but these are real-stories so I guess people are not giving much thought to the horrible ordeal of breaking up. Nor would a greater variety and deeper insights into the context, although I do understand that part of the fun is to have micro-tales sans the context to judge. I'd still prefer the former.
Overall, a decent laugh was had.

A fun, quick read, some made me chuckle and some made me cringe. A cute little book if you are just getting over a breakup.

This book was hilarious. Anybody who has had, done or experienced a breakup, good or bad, will like this. I think it is a good book for fans of roz chast, kate beaton, allie brosh, sarah andersen or mimi pond.

This book is funny. After a particularly bad breakup, the artist decided to draw about their unfortunate experience. This first drawing led to collecting breakup stories from other people and illustrating them. This collection is a great read for those days that you are in the mood to commiserate with other people's bad experiences, or in the mood to giggle at other people's bad experiences.
The only thing I didn't like is that this book is 100% negative 100% of the time. (Lets be honest- not appreciating the negativity is on me, not the author/artist. What was I expecting picking up a book about breakups?!)
Overall it is funny and a quick read. It would be particularly great on an evening when you need a laugh (or a cringe) but don't have time to read a long story.

Don't tell me that this title didn't attract you. Certainly, it did, isn't it? :P I guess it is the title that attracted me too for requesting it in the first place. I got it actually last year, but I don't know why I waited so long to read such a small and funny book?

So this was really a short book. As you can gather the info from the synopsis that this is a collection of weird and funny stories that different people have sent to the author. She has also incorporated her illustrations into the stories.

What I Liked:
--------------------------
1) Great mix of stories: Well the stories were of all kind. Some were short, some were little longer, some were funny, some were weird and some felt really painful. I guess, (almost) everyone has gone through a breakup at least once. It is certainly not easy. Some breakups go well and end up smoothly and some.. well. Reading such collection made me laugh at few while made me sad for others. There were some stupid stories too and I was just thinking, can people even break up on this? Overall, the author has provided a mixed kind of stories which were fun to read.
2) Nice illustrations: After each story, the author has also provided the illustration of that story. They were quite good and funny. The illustrations were simple though but they perfectly match the stories.
3) The title: Wel, this has to be the biggest plus point for the book. The title is so catchy that it takes your attention instantly.
4) Unique idea and quick read: I like the overall idea of the book. It was very unique. Breakups are generally painful and with this unique and hilarious collection of that painful thing, the author has really done an incredible job. Also, the book was really short and quick read because of the writing style. The stories were presented like proses.
5) Best dedication ever: Trust me on this. The dedication of the book was the funniest one I have read to date. The dedication itself sets your mood for the further stories. Okay, you can also laugh. Here it is:

"To that one dude,
for being such an inspirational dick."


What I didn’t like:
---------------------------------------
1) Some stories had bad drawing placement: Well this is not a that big point, but I guess it affected my reading flow in some places. This can totally be there because I had an ARC and they have corrected it in the final book? Maybe, but here, in some stories, the illustration was placed in between a story, often in the middle of a sentence and the rest started after the drawing. This was somewhat annoying.
2) Not a special writing style: Okay so this can be the overall idea of the author- taking the stories from people and adding them as it is. It felt as if no effort was made by the author in incorporating those stories.
3) Wanted some stories to be a little longer: As I said earlier that this was a good mix of short and long stories, but there were a few for which I wanted a little longer version.

Final Thoughts:
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Overall, this book was quite enjoyable. I would definitely recommend this. It was an unexpected read for me. If you are looking to read some weird and funny stories, pick it up. Or if you are planning a holiday, take it with you. Or if you just had a breakup and you want to read something that would make you laugh for a moment, just pick it up. A mix up for short and long stories, this will definitely paste a smile on your face and will make you think that yeah, weird people do exist.

[Note:  This book was provided free of charge by Net Gallery/Animal Media Group.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.]

Most people have experienced the pain of a breakup, sometimes in ways that were particularly comical or tragicomical, and for such people who want to share their embarrassing experiences and put a humorous light on them to take the sting out of the experience, this book is a hilarious and unsurprisingly awkward tour of user-submitted stories.  As might be imagined, the author was inspired to start this as a blog project from her own breakup experiences, and guessed correctly that there would be plenty of other people whose experiences with love and romance have been particularly awkward [1].  The result is a book that does allow for a laugh among people that places their own awkward experiences in a context that shows that others have it just as bad if not worse, which is hard for some of us to manage given the disastrous nature of our own relationships.  At the very least, a book like this encourages us to believe that our misfortune in love is at least not our fault alone, if at all, whether or not that is accurate.

This book is organized in a pretty simple and straightforward fashion.  First comes a story about some sort of awkward and botched breakup and then there is a drawing of some kind that shows it in a humorous light.  The stories and drawings are the stars of this show, and names have been changed to protect the identity of the guilty as well as the (relatively) innocent.  Included in this story are cowardly breakups by phone or text, a lot of cheating partners whose behavior is uncovered in unusual ways, breakups that are followed by regret and failed attempts at reconciliation, such as when someone is called a model who ends up being a kleptomaniacal stripper.  Some of the breakups are from people who are young, sometimes older, but in all cases something clearly went wrong.  Some of the more poignant experiences are attempts at scaring someone into intimacy through pregnancy that do not go well or times where someone has spent a great deal of effort to make a long distance relationship work only to find out that the other person wasn't putting in the effort.  In some cases one of the partners wanted a more serious partner and the other one just wanted to keep it casual, with inevitable heartbreak.

Yet even though this is a lighthearted book that takes heartbreak as an opportunity to create beautiful drawings as well as tell humorous stories, there are deeper elements to the book as well.  One of the darker elements of the book is the way that our longings tend to push us into intimacy, and that often our feelings our engaged when our bodies are engaged, despite the fact that the time and situation may not be ideal.  Our attempts at making a clean break from the past may be hindered by our regrets or the fact that we were a good enough partner that someone else would regret no longer being with us.  This is a book that reminds us that although we may laugh about our misguided attempts to hold on to people or the way that we or others may not have acted honorably in our relationships, that our attempts to laugh it off and shake it off do not mean that we cease trying to connect with other people no matter how we have been hurt before.  Our optimism and the intensity of our longings tends to make us keep trying again, hoping, sometimes against hope, that this time we will get it right.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016/09/27/the-providence-of-a-friendly-author/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016/05/14/speak-now-or-forever-hold-your-peace/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016/01/23/book-review-i-was-blind-dating-but-now-i-see/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015/08/05/a-modest-proposal-for-a-web-integrated-dating-show/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014/10/17/such-a-rollercoaster-a-review-of-the-2014-feast-of-tabernacles-in-redmond-bend/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014/08/31/chick-magnet/

Not terrible, just really short. The book was cute, but not laugh out loud funny.

Finished this book in one sitting as it was very hilarious

Thanks to Netgalley and Animal Media Group for the opportunity to review this book.

This is a fabulously different way to summarise feelings upon relationship breakup. A compilation of experiences, interspersed with cartoons and they’re good cartoons.

It’s very American in its examples, however, for anyone who has experienced a breakup (and that’s us all, yes)? This is for you / me / all of us!

Enjoy!

I was really hoping that I would like this graphic novel but honestly it just fell flat for me. The concept of it could have been amazing. From the description I thought it would have been more of a graphic novel and less like a picture book. You would have one to two pages of text and then a drawing. It was nothing that I was expecting.

Unfortunately, the stories weren't even that spectacular nor did the drawings make up for it. At one point, a drawing was in the middle of the story and "spoiled" the ending which was just bad placement.

The pictures were okay but really nothing special. It was nothing spectacular.

All in all, It was okay. I probably won't pick up another book from this author.

Some of the stories definitely made me smile. Most of them were quite entertaining, but not so outlandish that you would wonder about their authenticity. The art is quite clever, but I disliked that some of the stories were split up by them. All in all I would say that this would be perfect for a train ride or a quick pick me up.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do...But You Could Have Done Better By Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell

This small volume was very disappointing because these stories lacked real depth. Most were about a page and a half and frankly could have been a magazine article. The cartoons were not even humorous. Most of the stories centered on elementary and middle school break ups, with just a few from college age. I was expecting some angst moving feelings that moved me as break ups are usually painful in life. I think this could have been so much better if it captured some adult break ups from long term relationships or marriages.

Thank you to Net Galley, Hillary Fitzgerald Campbell and Animal Media Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest and fair review.

This book was just okay for me. I might have just built it up in my head too much. The break-up stories featured were funny, sad, tragic, and all in between. This book features multiple stories and drawings, and while it wasn't my cup of tea, maybe it's yours.

Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed reading this and the artwork is so cool.

A couple stories maybe made me crack a smile for it's absurdity, but for the most part the stories didn't leave a big impression for me. Some stories even made me bored, however, I did enjoy the illustrations that accompanied each story. It was a quick read and I didn't dislike it.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do... But You Could've Done Better is a compilation of real-life break-up stories, each story accompanied by amusing illustrations that helps assuage the awkwardness and/or anguish associated with break-ups.

I found the compilations both weird and funny at the same time. I could understand some stories, but others I thought were so weird, it was a little hard to understand they were real, actual stories that happened to real people!. Kudos to Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell for finding humor within these stories through her illustrations.

Overall, they were certainly entertaining, and I finished reading the book in one sitting!

I received a copy of this novel from the Publisher via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

This was kinda funny. And there were some amazing quotes.

<i>He threw a Gameboy at my head</i> stands out among them.

The stories are definitely relatable.

Some of the cartoons were hilarious and on point. But sometimes the cartoons over-explained the stories. It may have been funnier to just see the pictures. And maybe read the backstory if you wanted to.

But the Jesus cartoon was pretty damn funny.

This was a cute, quick read on a topic that many of us can relate to-- break-ups. The stories had me intrigued enough to read them all in one sitting! And the illustrations sprinkled throughout were the icing on the cake. I would have loved for the book to have included more stories, but I enjoyed nonetheless. I just felt like there could have been more of something.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2172760932

I received a copy from NetGalley for an honest review. One hundred and fifty pages of funny break up stories exactly what I needed at the moment. Funny and light read.