This book isn’t just cute. It’s downright adorable. I spent the first half feeling pretty critical, thinking I wasn’t going to enjoy where it was going. But I’m so glad I stuck it out.

Harper is a worker bee at her mom’s bridal shop during the summer before her senior year of high school. She’s turned cynical from watching countless bitchy brides (and being raised by a single mom who never dates). Her lifelong BFF and neighbor, Theo, on the other hand, is a shamelessly sappy romantic, who can “fall in love” with a girl after just one date. Sick of watching him get upset, Harper proposes that she give Theo lessons on how to date and not fall in love. Theo agrees, on the condition that Harper find a date of her own—like the cute guy she always sees outside the gym across the shop.

What I felt critical of in the beginning of this book turned out to be what I enjoyed most towards the end. You can see what’s going to happen from a mile away, but in this case, it works perfectly because our little protagonist Harper is totally clueless about it. It’s like once I remembered this is YA romcom, everything clicked into place. It’s SO corny and predictable and goofy in the best ways. It captures so well being young and dating and how all the little things feel like such. big. things. But it’s refreshing in that it doesn’t happen exactly as one would expect. The resolution is unique and fitting for the story. (I’d 100% watch a movie of this too.)

For a dose of teenage nostalgia that will have you rolling your eyes, thinking “OMG you both are SO STUPID” — look for this one!

This story was your typical best friends to lovers trope. It was nerdy, angsty, and not very long. It's perfect for your kiddos that like romance stories but doesn't want something with hundreds of pages.

This was a great YA contemporary romance novel that I would recommend to anyone. The story was quick, easy to read, and overall very engaging.

Sweet story and an enjoyable YA romance that follows Harper as she tries to help her friend Theo not fall in love with every girl he encounters. Charming and a total delight!

Theo and Harper had been life-long best friends, but they couldn’t be more different when it came to romance. Theo was a hopeless romantic who wore his heart on his sleeve. Harper was jaded after a bad relationship and years of seeing the havoc wedding planning can cause while working at her mother’s bridal boutique. After Theo had his heart broken, yet again, Harper wanted to school him in the ways of NOT falling in love. But her plan may have backfired, as Harper found herself falling fast.

I had so much love for Firkins’ previous book, Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things. The book was one of those made-me-happy-books, and I am here to say, Firkins has done it one again with How Not to Fall in Love.

Obviously, I had high expectations for this book, but I didn’t think I would relate to the characters so much. When I first met Harper, I thought she was just a cynic from working in the wedding industry. We have all heard the horror stories and seen the reality shows, but her complicated emotions regarding love and romance had deep roots. Things happened, and she felt unlovable, unimportant, easy to leave behind. There were a few times where I felt like Harper was in my head with respect to some of the damage she was grappling with. So, yeah, I felt a lot as I read Harper’s story and that connection had me deeply invested in seeing this to the end.

I mentioned that Harper was in the wedding industry, and thus, good chunks of this book take place at Beneath the Veil, her mother’s bridal boutique. I loved this! If you haven’t checked out Firkins’ IG, you should, because then you could drool over her incredible dress creations. It was nice to see her incorporate that love of fashion and construction in this book. There were also these lovely moments shared with Harper and the brides which provided her with a different perspective regarding love and relationships.

Friendship also played a big role in this book. Harper and Theo had grown up together. They shared a myriad of memories and knew each other better than they knew themselves. It was such a treat spending time with them, and I experienced some best friend envy at some point too.

Let’s do a little Theo appreciation. He was a precious soft boy! It pained me that he kept choosing the wrong girls, because the right ones would value him and all his nerdy glory. He loved words, the accordion, fencing, and LARPing. There were few, but I enjoyed those LARPing scenes so much. You know what? I liked all the word play too.

How Not to Fall in Love had a winning combination of family, friendship, and romance. This was exactly what I needed to help get me out of my funk. When I finished this book, I was all happy tears and heart-eyes, and I swear, my heart definitely expanded three sizes, too. Such a sweet story, and I reveled seeing Harper learn from her past as she opened her heart to love.

Book Review!
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Okay, typically with romances I am ready to strap myself in to a very predictable Hallmark rollercoaster. And while I predicted at least what would happen to the characters in the end, the how we got there was VERY unpredictable and done so artfully. In How Not to Fall in Love by Jacqueline Firkins, I was pleasantly surprised to find a rich, character-driven story with pieces of the plot that artfully and expertly moved our main character, Harper, forward on her quest to (not) fall in love.

I think what I found most appealing about this book, was how relatable Harper was in regards to her trials and tribulations with love. There were moments in Harper's longer internal monologues that I couldn't help but feel like Firkins had taken my own thoughts and plastered them all over the page. With a glance at the cover, one may think this a cheesy YA romance, but they would be sorely mistaken. Instead, they will find a wonderful coming-of-age story that expertly navigates the ideas of young love and honestly love in general, and how it may seem like everyone else has their life together, but really we all are looking for the same thing: someone to be just as happy to spend their time with them as you are. This book reads fast for just under 250 pages and is jam packed with quirky, heart-wrenching, and adorable moments. I'm definitely giving this a 5/5 star rating for the unable to put down rating scale.

"A hardened cynic and a hopeless romantic teach each other about love in this swoony and heartfelt contemporary romance that's perfect for fans of Tweet Cute and The Upside of Falling."

How Not to Fall in Love by Jacqueline Firkins, 239 pages. Clarion Books, 2021. $18. LGBTQIA
Language: R (72 swears, 1 “f”); Mature Content: PG13; Violence: PG
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
Harper is doing her best to keep her mom’s wedding dress shop moving towards the black, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for anything else. But when her best friend, Theo, has his heart broken again, Harper offers to teach him how not to fall in love -- by getting into a relationship herself to show him how it’s done. Falling in love and not falling in love turn out to be much harder than anyone anticipated.
I had been looking forward to reading this book for months. In some ways, like how each character’s quirky personality permeated the pages, the wait was well worth it. However, I was disappointed by how big of a role sex played in the relationships and, thus, the book itself. The back and forth between Harper and Theo was agonizing as they simply failed to communicate clearly and then rushed forward without thinking and went back to failing to communicate. The mature content rating is for underage drinking, discussions of sex, innuendo and implied sex, and nudity.
Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

I loved this- super cute and read it in one sitting. Thank you so much for thenn no opportunity to read and review!

I couldn’t finish it once I figured out how the relationships were going to fit. After so many pages of the neighbor Theo being a totally platonic (and sort of annoying) friend it was hard to shift into him as a love interest.

This was an adorably fun story about a single woman navigating the tricky and sometimes infuriating world of dating. I loved the fact that she worked at her mom’s bridal shop, seeing brides-to-be come and go, while she hasn’t had a serious relationship. The story was a little predictable, or maybe I was just rooting for the will they / won’t they mystery surrounding her best friend / next door neighbor. If you want an airy feel good story with lovable characters that you can root for, look no further.

How Not to Fall in Love is a sweet YA romance about two best friends who go their separate ways only to realize they are better together. I loved the pacing and trope of the book, and all the characters were really well flushed out. Here's where the book lost me though: the main characters don't read like they are seniors in high school, they come off like mature adults, which is why when it got to the explicit content in the book I had to remind myself that they are 18 or younger because the steam level is pretty high (see content warning) and the character development doesn't reflect typical teens on summer vacation headed into senior year. I don't think teens would have a problem with the steamy content, but their parents might. Overall, I enjoyed the book, but am unsure who the audience is due to the personality of the characters. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

CW: sex positive consensual sexual activity= (on page) non-penetrative and (off-page) penetrative

Advanced copy provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a quick easy read that I couldn’t put down!! Harper works to teach her long time best friend Theo how NOT to fall in love with every girl he meets, in exchange for some vocabulary help for her upcoming SAT. Throughout their anti-love dating lessons, Harper realizes she’s fallen in love with someone, but is it too late? Follow Harper on a roller coaster of emotions with this read!

I really enjoyed this YA romance! The book starts out with Harper working in her mom's bridal shop the summer before senior year. She's seen so many squabbles break out over wedding plans (and had her heart broken once before) that she's become cynical about love. Her best friend Theo is her opposite. He falls in love with every girl he takes on a date. Harper tries to teach Theo to protect his heart, but in the process, ends up in a love triangle of her own. I don't want to give anything away, but this is a really sweet story, and the love triange is handled pretty well considering all of the members of the triangle are pretty good people (there's no obvious one to hate or anything). Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This was a perfect "harlequin" romance. It was very sweet, kind of predictable, and fun.
It was a nice change from the angst from books I usually read!
Enjoy!

Apart from the easy sex, which I found a bit much, this is a predictable friends-to-lovers YA romance that has some cute moments.

Theo, a sweet, word-and LARP-loving nerd is all about serial heartbreak and trying too hard. After one very brief relationship, Harper, the cynical business brain of her mom's bridal dress business, is commitment-shy and all about self-protection. Trading on her (in)experience, Harper agrees to teach longtime BFF Theo how not to fall in love. No surprise, the script flips when she finds herself falling for him.

While I typically enjoy the friends-to-lovers trope, I lost interest in this story pretty quickly. I prefer YA romances with more character development and more nuanced treatments of love, sex, and family relationships, While tweens might enjoy this one, the sexual content would, in my opinion, be inappropriate for them.

2.5 stars

I really enjoyed this story, it was an easy read in which the cynical Harper (who everyone can relate to at one stage or another) changes her outlook on love.

It was believable with some wonderful characters. I laughed and cried and demolished the book in one sitting.

The cover is adorable. The book is light and fun. Not a huge best friends to lovers fan, but I appreciated the emotional depth throughout the plot as they navigated the relationship.

Teenage Harper is done with love, while her best friend Theo is a hopeless romantic. After Theo's latest heartbreak, Harper decides to teach him how to not fall in love.

This was such a cute book! I'm a sucker for the friends to lovers trope, and this book really delivered. Harper and Theo were great characters and although I knew where this was going, it was fun to see their relationship develop. The side characters and parents in this book were great also, without coming across as too perfect.

Overall I enjoyed the book, but I think it would've made more sense to market this as New Adult. Yes, teens have sex, but I don't know how realistic it is to have parents who are so open about it. Also, the teens using dating apps threw me off a bit. Harper was also kind of serious, and all these thing together seem to suggest characters who are a bit older than 17.

How Not To Fall In Love is a YA rom-com that follows the friends to lovers storyline. Knowing that going into it, you know exactly how it will play out. Harper and Theo live next door to each other, where they share a comfortable relationship for many years, almost like brother and sister. And then Harper starts noticing that Theo is hot. And getting jealous of his dates with other girls. But she can't really think of Theo in that way, can she?

Meanwhile, Theo is obviously in love with Harper but she's too blind to see all of the signs. It's frustrating how clueless she is for most of the book. This is a fun story to see come together (finally) although it took too long for them to get together.

This book was a really cute story of forever friends realizing they’ve spent their whole lives pining over each other. In a slightly less typical boy is a hopeless romantic and girl is a cynic, Harper and Theo make a pact to teach each other new skills. While Theo helps Harper with vocabulary for her SATs, Harper tries to teach Theo how not to fall in love.

In typical rom com fashion, Harper realizes that in helping Theo how not to fall so easily, she’s learned more about falling in love.

The only reason I docked this book is because there is a lot of sexual tension in a way that felt too old for the 17 year old characters. I think if they had been graduating college instead of high school the story would have worked better.