This is my first time reading from this author. And I really love this story line. I would definitely recommend this book and I will read this book again. Lol.

Leslie Cohen offers readers a gentle but solid relationship novel. I really appreciated the depth of the character profile of the heroine. The hero's profile isnt quite as strong. The story itself, with all it's chance meetings, get togethers and pull aparts kept my interest and was quite entertaining. Ms. Cohen switches points of view from the heroine to the hero and that was a bit difficult for me, as I was not as cued into the hero. If you like a relationship story with all its' ups and downs, this one might be a good fit.

I received an advanced reader’s copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Simon & Shuster and the author, Leslie Cohen. My opinion is entirely my own and had not been influenced by an outside force in any way.

Now that the formalities are out of the way, let us hop right into the actual review. The first chapter/prologue opened up with Eve’s point of view, which was an inner monologue that helped set the mood for the story. The first segment of the book caused me to slightly dislike Eve, because I felt that it presented her as a bit egotistical. Towards the end of this monologue, she states that she can be a tad self-centered, and if you can admit that to yourself then kudos to you. 
The next bit of monologue comes from the second main character, Ben. Ben gives us an insight into Eve’s character. Ben describes Eve as kind of an airhead. He states that “the ratio of irrational to rational thoughts was about twenty to one”. He talks about how, despite the whirlwind that is her mind and life, she makes you want to stay. 
After an insight into the two MCs, Leslie Cohen launches into a flashback, which seems quite reasonable since the story is kind of told as a recollection of events that led up to Eve and Ben reuniting. The author used a lot of simple sentences with a couple complex ones mixed in here or there. The writing style was a bit of a turn off, but I promised myself that I would make it 25% of the way through the novel before I decided to DNF it or not. One thing that stuck out to me about this book was that the author loves to tell not show; the way she described her characters left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m sorry, but I don’t care that Kate’s akin tone was perpetually tan and that her eyes and hair were the same shade of perfect chestnut

8%: 
Love interest: I want to fuck your brains out
MC1: How poetic

10%: 
Love interest: I'm alluding that I’m actually a drug dealer, wanna go across town with me in the dark of the night?
MC1: Hells yeah

11%:
Love interest: You mom died when you were young? No way! Mine too!

13%:
I had to skip the entire monologue, it was killing my brain

18%:
I think this was supposed to be a sexy scene, but I didn’t get any of it. It was like half a page long, included, you guessed it, another monologue from Eve, and ended with Jesse (love interested) cracking a window with his knee. I’m not seeing the sexiness of it. 

19%: 
They fight. Jesse leaved. Eve sulks. Jesse comes back. They talk. Repeat 10 times. Jesse does drugs. Repeat 2 more times. Let’s make up after this fight and go to a tiki bar in Chinatown at 1 in the morning

Where is the dialogue? The plot? My motivation to finish this book?

21%:
Kate’s here, so I’m going to talk about Jesse is going to eventually break my heart and stomp all over it, but that’s okay, because I might be in love with him. I haven’t seen Jesse for like 3 minutes and I feel like my world is caving in. Oh, look. Jesse and all of his buddies are doing lines in the basement of the weird bar. 

22%: 
Tragic back story time! Still no dialogue! WOW!

25%: DNF. The story is a quarter of the way through, and the most we have of the other MC, Ben, is when Eve dismisses him. She is absolutely unbearable, and from reviews I have read, she doesn’t get better. Also, Ben doesn’t show until less than 50% of the novel is left.

I always feel bad for leaving a negative review, but I promised to be honest. The synopsis made me think that the book was going to be this heartfelt tale of love gained and lost. I was disappointed.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for my review.  I just loved this story so much!  I adored Eve, who was just enough of a hot mess that she felt really familiar to me- like we must have been friends in college or something. Then there was Engineer Ben, who always seems to know how everything works.  They are at their best together, but they cannot seem to figure that out, which makes it fun and angsty for the reader.  There are just not enough truly adorable stories like this one!

When I read the title of this book I sorta thought this wasn't going to end well. I mean the title says it all right? This is a coming of age of two opposite individuals meeting one another again and again, and I like that. Their love wasn't there right away as any other story you have read (I think) it was more of baby steps, especially for the character, Eve. She's a mess. It's okay she agrees also lol, and she is just scared of being in a relationship because she believes he will leave in the end. She rather be with someone who is more of a mess like she is. In a way she's someone you can compare yourself to when it comes trying to mature and find your way around life. You have phases in your life and I love that the author used that in her book. Truth be told, it took a while for me to like Eve. during her college days, I found her so annoying but I grew to enjoy what she was thinking and feeling. I think anyone who is into witnessing how someone matures and learns to love, this is the kind of book it is. It was cute, weird, funny and did I mention weird? lol some moments eve had were weird. Especially creating a song about some certain item lol. Not going to spoil it. I hope you enjoyed this review and just keep on reading my lovelies.

I had to force myself to finish this one. I just did. not. care. about Eve or Ben. At all.

DNF at 50%.

I hate to DNF when I have made it this far but this is just absolutely not for me. I cannot be halfway through the book and still not care a bit for the narrator, because I don't care about her conclusion. I don't want Eve and Ben to end up together, because I like Ben and Eve is insufferable. Impossible. I don't need to love a character to enjoy a book, but there is not enough going on here outside Eve's mind. At halfway through, we'd still only had two chapters from Ben's POV. Ben is great. I'd love more Ben. But I know, were I to finish, I'd be hoping for him to leave Eve in the dust. Eve is described as quirky, but no. I'm sorry. Her idiosyncrasies are unacceptable. It's not possible for me to root for her. She is rude, unpleasant, and just completely irredeemable in my eyes, at this point. 

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for advance access to this book for an honest opinion.

I did not enjoy this book at all. She's point of view chapters were filled with so many self pitying thoughts. I could not connect with her at all because I was so annoyed. 

Ben's POV chapters were only mildly better. 

I found myself skimming a good portion of the last part of the book. I wanted to know how it all ended, but could not give any more energy to trying to like Eve.

Leslie Cohen's debut novel is cute romance about two people who would never have imagined they'd end up together. In fact, when Eve and Ben first meet, Eve barely gives Ben the time of day before passing him off on a friend so she can hook up with her crush. But they keep coming back into each other's lives and as they start to see each other in different lights, their relationship changes dramatically.

The definite strength of the book is the character of Eve. After peeking at Cohen's biographical details, I have no doubt the character was substantially based on herself and whenever you're in her head, she feels completely real. She's a bit of a mess, but she's doing her best and she's (mostly) making it through life. Every scene she's in sparkles with personality and feels totally authentic to the type of character she is and the story Cohen wants to tell.

Unfortunately, the book is told only partly from Eve's perspective and the rest is told from Ben's perspective, which I found to be much weaker. I didn't feel that I ever really knew Ben that well, even when I was supposedly inside his head. He was clearly written as an uncommunicative character, but I didn't feel that much was revealed even when we were given full access. The closest we get is when we find out a portion of his backstory that connects him to Eve, even before they first met. But sadly, that part feels tacked on. It's not necessary to the story at all and feels like a manufactured twist to connect the two characters when that connection is not needed at all. In the end it doesn't amount to much, so I would rather have seen time spent on how Ben learns to open up instead of run away in the present, rather than on the feelings he has about this past event.

I was also disappointed in the ending, because Cohen pulled one of my least favorite romantic comedy tricks - Ben has to choose between Eve and his current girlfriend, but of course it's not really a choice at all, because the current girlfriend is basically a "straw-girlfriend." Everything about her is designed so that you don't care about her and so you don't care when Ben callously dumps her in the most cowardly way. But that's not the way things are in real life. Everyone is human - everyone has a part of themselves that's a little bit messy and everyone feels pain when someone hurts them. It felt to me like Cohen didn't really know how to end Ben and Eve's story, so she quickly manufactured a conventional romance ending. It's too bad - I was really rooting for Ben and Eve, but in the end I didn't actually have high hopes for their relationship. If Ben's response to every problem is to just bail instead of having difficult conversations, I don't see how they can make a committed relationship work. 

If I could be really precise with ratings, I would give the book 3.75 stars out of five, because I was really engaged in the story about 3/4 of the way through, and then it lost me at the end. I would have preferred that Cohen take the time to write a realistic and well-earned reunion at the end, where both characters demonstrate that they have changed and grown, instead of the long "happily ever after" scenes that closed out the book.

Eve is a “walking, talking well of feelings,” an artsy type taking plenty of writing classes at Columbia University. Ben is an engineering student at Columbia, who naturally seeks order. Eventually, the two opposites end up together. But in the intervening 10 years or so, as many times as they cross paths, they don’t have any interest in each other.

This Love Story is about their love story, but also about the many years they didn’t have a love story. It’s told in alternating points of view, as they date other people and try to figure out their lives as they go through their 20s. They live in New York City, and the city and their haunts play a significant part in the story as well.

Eve’s part of the story takes up far more than Ben’s; the first fifth of the book is almost all about her, including a long and tortured relationship she has with an aspiring musician. Ben’s story and perspective really play second fiddle in the book, which makes it feel off-balance.

Thanks to the short shrift given Ben (was his life just that much less interesting than Eve’s?), and then because Eve’s just so given to “feelings,” which can get old without careful handling, I didn’t feel really drawn into the story. It’s notable, too, how much the book is just about New York, about everything people who are from there love about it, and while other people from New York will probably really appreciate it, those of us who aren’t (and that’s most of the nation) won’t be as excited about all the NYC details.

When it comes down to it, This Love Story Will Self-Destruct is best for people from New York who are similar to the main characters. The rest of us may or may not enjoy it.

Rated: High, for probably three dozen uses of strong language, some crude conversations and some sex. Most of it is just referred to, though there are a couple of scenes that briefly have some detail (one is rather odd).

A will-they-ever-be-happy-together type of story with a little weird September 11 references thrown in for good measure.

Review will be posted on 1/30/18
Eve Porter has been through a lot. Her mother died tragically and her father left her and her sister when they were young.  Due to this, she spends a lot of time worrying and observing things in order to protect herself.  She dates a lot of toxic people and when she meets Ben, she assumes he is too nice, too boring, and far too perfect for her taste.  But as the years go by, she runs into Ben again as they share some of the same college friends and there's definitely something there.  Can Eve let herself date a "normal" guy? Can she allow herself to be happy? This novel is very reminiscent of When Harry Met Sally, which is one of my favorite movies, so I thoroughly enjoyed This Love Story Will Self-Destruct by Leslie Cohen.

Eve felt like such a real character to me in This Love Story Will Self-Destruct. Her issues were all real and easy to relate to. I know so many people that self-sabotage, so I think that her story will be resonate with many. I didn't always agree with Eve's choices and she frustrated me at times with her ability to self-destruct, but I was rooting for her. I wanted her to have her happy ending.

Her friendship turned relationship with Ben was so well done in This Love Story Will Self-Destruct.  I loved every aspect of it.  As I said, if you adore When Harry Met Sally, you'll appreciate their relationship even more so.  I loved how it was rooted in friendship and it felt so real. Ben is such a good guy and some of their discussions had me laughing out loud. The issues that they deal with - college friends, crazy family, past relationships, betrayals, first jobs....all felt very real, especially when trying to navigate the confusing times of your twenties.

Leslie Cohen is definitely a debut author that's definitely on my radar. I really enjoyed her writing style and her ability to bring New York City to life in addition to such memorable characters. This Love Story Will Self-Destruct will definitely make my "Best of 2018" list at the end of the year. I loved it!

I want to give a huge thank you to Netgalley for giving me an advanced copy of this book!

This Love Story Will Self-Destruct is about two people and their lives as they intertwine with one another. First we meet Eve, who is carefree and a dreamer. Then there's Ben, a straight forward hard worker that needs some form of order in his life. This novel goes through their experiences with each other from strangers, to friends, to maybe more. 

To me this book was a solid three stars. Nothing less, nothing more. I was hoping for me that this would be a hidden gem, but no. I loved Ben, all throughout the book he was my favorite. Eve on the other hand, I couldn't stand at times. She was self centered and neurotic at times, but I guess that was the point of polar opposites in the book. Overall I liked this book and recommend it if you are looking for a When Harry Met Sally type of contemporary read.

DNF @ 27% 

Do you ever start a book and instantly get that sinking feeling in your gut because you know with every fiber of your being that you're just not gonna like it one bit?? I always feel absolutely horrible not finishing arcs, but when I don't care about characters at the 20% mark, I know I'm not going to care to see their journey to the end of the book. 

Everything about This Love Story Will Self-Destruct grated on my nerves. It had that writing style I loathe in which everything in such a way to seem super deep, except it's really just incredibly shallow. It felt forced, like the author was trying to create sentences that could be pulled from the book and used as "deep" quotes to be plastered on some dreamy photo of a beach or sunset. This Love Story Will Self-Destruct not only had the fake-deep writing though, but also sections of paragraph that made little to no sense. I don't know if the author was trying to go for some sort of abstract style of describing things & events or what, but it didn't work for me in the slightest. At 3% in I was already struggling to keep up with the metaphors and descriptions. 

And Eve. Oh, sweet lord, I had to deal with pages upon pages of Eve. Look, I love quirky characters. I love characters with depth and tortured pasts, who perform questionable actions because of it. But Eve. My god. I don't think I've ever hated a main character so quickly. She's the epitome of a quirky character gone wrong. Her past was traumatic, but leaves me hard-pressed to understand how it ended with her becoming such a scattered, brainless character. Her actions were irrational or incredibly dramatic, and even with being inside her head throughout almost 30% of the novel, I still don't feel like I ever got a good understanding of what drove her so forcefully to do the inane things she did. 

Besides the writing and Eve, there were also a few other things that made me decide to toss this one aside. After reading others' reviews (god bless you people who made it through this), I learned that the real main love interest doesn't even appear again in the story until 50%. And yeahhh, there was no way I was going to make it until then with the guy that was Eve's current boyfriend. Aside from that, I've also seen mention of Eve cheating which doesn't surprise me in the slightest but still makes me want to bang my head against the wall. I can only hope that one day we'll have romance novels without cheating. 

Overall, This Love Story Will Self-Destruct was one of those books that was just not for me. Between the writing style, Eve's narration, and Eve herself, I was unable to drag myself to the halfway mark. I'm disappointed, because I feel like the characterization of those within the novel was strong (as annoying as they were), and there was a glimmer of potential throughout what I read. Unfortunately though, anything truly memorable and enjoyable failed to be executed.

Some mixed feelings, more like a 3.5 star, this novel is well written and entertaining.  I loved the Manhattan background, which felt like it’s own character.  Eve and Ben get together, fall apart and the reader will have to wait to see what happens.  Eve is damaged by losses in her past, and although with a sense of humor, she can’t get beyond self destructive behavior.  Ben is that sweet guy, who is together except when he falls for Eve.  I did feel that this book would be appreciated by a younger demographic than my almost senior self, particularly those in their 20’s and 30’s.

So now that you have a little context, lets get into it. This book is not at all what I was expecting it to be. I figured it would be another New Adult romance. You know a little dramatic, filled with smut, and a fluffy happy ending. And I would have been 100% okay with us, because those types of books are my not so guilty pleasure. But this was not that at all. This story was real and honest, and what I feel many of us experience at some point in our lives. And for me the most unique and wonderful aspect of this book is that everything centers around certain places. Like that is how Eve and Ben remember important moments in their relationship, the restaurant they went to, the apartment they were in, the sidewalk they were standing on. I found this to be such an accurate representation of the way people remember important moments, myself included. Now I'll just say that there aren't major spoilers here, because I don't want to ruin the ending for you guys. And I will not be commenting on the entire book, only the parts I feel are important to the overall context of the book. Alright here we go!

Honestly I felt that Eve was me at 17 years old, though she is around 22 when the book starts and 27 when it ends. But what she experienced, I experienced at one point in my life and maybe that's why I related to it so much. Eve's father left her family at a young age, and her mother died during the attack on the two towers. So she has experienced a lot of loss and as a result she feels that she will be left by everyone important in her life. She keeps a distance between her and everyone in her life, her stepdad, her sister, and the men in her life.

Full review here - at link below

This Love Story Will Self-Destruct by Leslie Cohen was a charming story about two people who meet and don’t fall for each other. Yes, you read that right. They run in similar circle and run into each other throughout the year, but sparks do not fly right away. It was actually charming to see them go through their journey. 

Eve and Ben cross paths when they are college and continue to meet across the years. They see each other through many different situations and continue to grow. Eve is a free spirit. She lives life to the fullest and does not always think things through. Ben is a man that follows structure and logic. He likes balance and plans. These two could not be more opposites.  

The majority of the story was Eve’s journey through life. Ben seems to go in and out of her life until they find a connection they never expected. This was my first read by Leslie Cohen and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed her writing, her characters and the overall story.

This Love Story Will Self-Destruct is a worthy entrant into the world of novels written with that special kind of tongue-in-cheek humor that won’t necessarily make you laugh out loud, but will definitely keep you smiling.

Eve is a lovable character who might best be described as goofy until you learn she’s not. She has had plenty of angst in her life. People have abandoned her — a fickle boyfriend (“It should be illegal for two English majors to date each other.”), a faithless father, and a mother who leaves for work one day and never comes back.

Ben is an engineer in every sense of the word — structured life, structured plans, structured thoughts. “I’d rather be quiet than full of sh*t,” he thinks, describing himself perfectly with that pithy statement. He’s a nice guy who’s bound to finish last in Eve’s world — a place where people without issues are suspect.

The storyline follows how two such very different people form a relationship which actually works against all odds. Oh, there are bumps along the way . . . bumps that will make you laugh, bumps that will make you sad, unexpected bumps, and bumps you could have predicted. As Eve’s sister Emma tells her “It’s like, a long time ago,  you decided you’d never be happy.”

One of my favorite things about this novel is the accuracy of the picture the author paints of life in New York City for young professionals. We are so used to seeing the glitz and glamour portrayed in films and on television, it’s kind of a wake-up call to see that all New Yorkers don’t live that way.

This Love Story Will Self-Destruct is the kind of book that gives me hope for the future of literary fiction. It is fresh and funny and well-written and doesn’t rely on darkness, formulaic storylines, or gratuitous sex to hook readers. I think Ms. Cohen has a hit and I look forward to reading more of her work.

Well written unique take on the oft repeated New York post college genre. Near perfect character development and a story that propels
it’s self forward-skip ahead ten years.....as hopefully the last of the MFAs will write these characters or some iteration of them thru the
decades, maybe the last hope for literate fiction going forward?

Okay, so I really wanted to like this one more, but it just didn’t do it for me. I love a good twisted love story with depth – I even love a good Hallmarkish love story on occasion. But, This Love Story Will Self-Destruct by Leslie Cohen was not one of those.

Instead, it felt like a story I have heard over and over again. Damaged girl meets damaged bad boy = lots of chemistry. Girl comes to her senses. Girl meets a good guy, but because she doesn’t believe in happy endings, she screws it up. I feel like this is something that has been done multiple times before.

I also was not a fan of the lengthy inner monologues. They did not keep me engaged and I found myself skimming each time one appeared.

As far as characters, I was not a big fan of the main characters. The female lead annoyed me – and she did not act like many of the thirty-year-old women I know. (The story does begin in college, but by the time it ends, we are approaching thirty).

The one thing that did set this book apart is the added September 11th plotline. I did find this part of the story moving – and surprising. And, Cohen’s witty lines did make me laugh more than once such as when a character comments that two English majors should never be together.

I won’t say you should not read it – because it certainly was not one I’d throw into a did not finish pile. I did read the whole book and enjoyed a lot of it. It just won’t say you need to rush out and buy or you have to read it. To be fair, I do think some of my followers would enjoy it.

* I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


* It was released today, so go ahead and order it or put it on hold at your local library!