This is a book that excelled in concept and faltered in delivery.

The unraveling of a relationship is not always a fun topic to read about but Hayes did an exceptional job at making this honest and forthright and it did feel real.

I can’t quite put my finger on why this one didn’t win me over, but I think its a great book for people who love a bit of melancholy.

A very interesting premise and idea-- exploration of love backwards that helps reveals the characters' personalities one by one. The downside is the unlikeable characters that are hard to relate to and like. The toxicity of the relationship also got to me.

An interesting premise, following a relationship in reverse. While I was really looking forward to this book, I wasn't exactly wowed by it. It was good, and I will be keeping my eye out for Hazel's next release, but I was not blown away.

The structure of this novel – following a failed relationship in reverse – was an interesting and unique one, but it didn't work for me. Plus the male lead was a complete ass, which makes sense, but it would have been a little better if he was at least a tad sympathetic.

I think the concept and premise of this book is what first drew me in. Getting to experience a love story in reverse after a couple has broken up is so interesting to me that I was thrilled to pick this one up. Unfortunately, I think the concept was better than the execution. In theory, knowing a love story is over and going in reverse to see where a couple started is fascinating and ingenious storytelling. One of my favorite movies has that concept (The Last Five Years) and this book very much gave me those vibes, but it fell a little flat for me.

Because I knew they weren't going to end up together, I kept holding back on my attachment to them as characters. That is very much on me, but I think it would have been executed batter with alternating timelines than just a reverse chronological order. I think we as readers would have been kept on our toes a bit more.

I still very much enjoyed the writing style and prose and the overall idea for this book, it just didn't work for me. I will definitely pick up more books in the future from this author.

Thank you PENGUIN GROUP Dutton and NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was perfectly serviceable, but I wasn't OMG amazed by it. It's been a tricky one to recommend, but the people who do read it don't have overly negative feelings about it

The premise of this book was interesting, the writing was tender and lovely. However, the novel structure did not quite work for me. I am not opposed to non-traditional novel structures, in fact, most add a layer of unique reading that I quite enjoy. The key to that working is characters that I like and am invested in. In knowing a lot of what was going to happen up front, and not being invested in the characters yet, I felt the book lost me a bit. An ok book - nothing great, and could have been better.

A perfectly lovely novel for when you need something with a bit of meat without being completely overwhelmed by a story.

I started reading this book thinking that the story would be about something else, but it surprised me and it has been a brutal journey. I liked it, but at the same time, it frustrated me too much.

In this book, our main character tells us how her relationship with her partner deteriorates, but not only that, she also tells us about the good things they went through.

I enjoyed the way the story was told, despite being a bit tedious and frustrating. The author made me dislike Theo a lot, he's toxic just as the main character (we don't know her name). However, there were times when I felt very sorry for not being able to help her or even hug her. I felt helpless reading everything that happened to her.

Anyway, I think this book is worth it, but please keep in mind that the story contains TW.

Hazel Hayes' debut novel, Out of Love, is therapy. Cleverly chronicling a love story backwards, from end to start, Out of Love provides a unique perspective of a flailing relationship. Most couples can tell you how they fell IN love, but not everyone has the insight to understand why they fell OUT of love. Hayes gives readers the opportunity to be the proverbial fly on the wall, peeking in on this couple as they call it quits, and following them in retrograde through time, observing all of the seemingly innocuous instances that eventually lead to a break-up. Incredibly insightful and thought-provoking, Out of Love is for anyone who has ever stood amidst the rubble of a hopeless relationship wondering how on Earth they got there.

While Out of Love's reverse storytelling won't be for everyone, I personally loved it and thought that the use of this tactic in terms of a break-up was brilliant. Here we see a couple at their worst - at the end of a relationship after both have hurt each other in such an inexplicable manner that the only choice they have left is to go their separate ways. We get to know them as two former parts of a whole. We understand that their relationship did not work out. What we do not know is who and how they were before everything fell down around them. Who they were IN love. By traveling backwards through time, Hayes feeds us little clues about their relationship, showcasing both the good and the bad. We see the ups and the downs, the highs and the lows, the first kiss and the last. We get to see where the cracks in this couple's foundation began before it turned into an earth-shattering chasm. And we also can't help but fall in love with them and their relationship, wishing that it all could have worked out, but reading with the keen awareness that we know that it won't in the end.

Out of Love is for all of the reflective and pensive readers out there, especially those who have ever had to say goodbye to someone they once loved more than life itself. Hayes writes relationships so well, capturing all of the emotions and thoughts that women have when their relationship isn't working out. I especially appreciated Hayes' insight into her protagonist's past, and her exploration of how one's upbringing can affect them throughout the rest of their life and especially in relationships. I found myself nodding along to much of Out of Love's unnamed female lead's thoughts and feelings, and found this book to be extremely affirming and resounding.

To anyone who loves to analyze relationships or for those who have experienced heartbreak themselves and wondered "why," Out of Love is for you.

I started this one and couldn't get into it - I wasn't sure if I was rooting for my main character, she didn't seem super likable? If you like romance I'd still give it a try.

<blockquote>"Sad sells." This might sound sadistic but it's true; people want to see their sadness reflected back at them because it makes them feel connected to something and connection is the best salve for sadness. </blockquote>

I was supposed to wake up in Dublin today. Instead, I'm convalescing. The cold and damp outside is homespun, familiar. I've eaten gallons of soup, and I have a hankering for stew. My week has been imbued with lilting Irish accents on screen, and pub crawls across Temple Bar between the covers too.

I meant to be reading the latest Sally Rooney. I thought I'd pick up a copy there. Instead, I'm here, #42 on the library waitlist for a digital copy. Maybe I'll manage to find my way to Dublin by then.

Today if I had my way I would be adventuring across Victor's Way, the strange and somewhat strangely erotic sculpture garden.

Instead, I stayed in bed, reading Out of Love, by Hazel Hayes.

I offhandedly wrote in a message to someone the other day that it feels like everything is happening to me in the wrong order. I feel like the plague should have cursed me a year ago, punishment for struggling to rise above it, for loosely interpreting the rules of lockdown in favour of meeting new people, daring to fall in love.

Instead, I lay here sad, weary, heartbroken, vulnerable all over again. I've been honing my skills, going back to basics, strengthening the foundation, in every aspect of my life. Careful, emotionally armoured, professionally guarded. And now, fate chooses to strike. What lesson am I to learn? I don't want to be made stronger by this, I am already strong enough, I couldn't bear to be any stronger; I want to be weak and taken care of.

I feel like I have lived my life in the wrong order. I should have started in this city, like I planned to at age seventeen. I would have moved to Europe by now. I would have met my lovers in a different order. I would be financially secure and emotionally independent and sexually confident by now. (But Isabella, you are those things now.) I am the wrong age, or it is the wrong context, or it is too late. Or too early. (Maybe I'm a stopped clock, right only twice a day.) I feel like I'm out of time, but I don't know if it's because I'm outside of time or because it's been depleted.

We're all running on separate tracks, at different speeds, occasionally intersecting, sometimes moving in opposite directions.

Out of Love, by Hazel Hayes, is a love story told in reverse, from breakup to first meeting. Outside of love? Has everything been sourced from it? Are the stores depleted?

<blockquote>It's not just two people saying good-bye and going their separate ways; it's the excruciating process of untangling two lives, picking them apart like some sad surgical procedure, trying ta detach this thing from that while causing as little lasting damage as possible.</blockquote>

[It's been a while since I had to extricate my life from someone else's. It's been a while since my life was implicated in someone else's. I've always stayed on the periphery, maybe because it's easier to make an escape from there.]

It's a charming story, from Dublin to London, with side trips to Paris and New York. It's a writer's life, as she grows into her voice and her being.

Possibly the best thing this novel gave me was the story of Hayes' inspiration, from Nora Ephron's Heartburn. "If I tell the story, I can get on with it." I know this: I need to tell the story (I know there is art in it), so I can get on with it.

<blockquote>We kissed. And I left. And that was it. I felt at once lighter and infinitely heavier.</blockquote>

Well, I'm in Love With Hazel Hayes

I enjoyed this book very much, but possibly not for the reasons the author intended. Didn't care much for the narrative moving backwards, although that was a clever touch. Didn't care at all for the cad husband Theo, except to the extent he provided a foil for our heroine. But oh, our heroine! The book is written in the first person, so we are always in her head. It's not stream of consciousness, but more like a conversational monologue or confessional. And it is an absolute delight. From page to page, paragraph to paragraph, and line to line the comments are funny, insightful, edgy, raw, pointed, sad, wise, silly, heartbreaking and, of greatest importance, convincing and authentic. The book is less plotted than it is a freefall mental walkabout, but I would have been happy to follow our heroine, and by extension our author, wherever her thoughts took us.

At the moment everyone is nuts for Sally Rooney, (which I get), but side by side and line for line, I prefer Hazel Hayes and her gimlet eyed, sardonic, and yet kind, generous and self-forgiving world view. A delightful find, and a joy even if you just like reading to admire how some authors can put words together.

(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

I'm still crying. But in a good way. In that way that a story touches you over and over and you are changed. I don't think it would have hit me so hard had I not been going through a major love life crisis of my own (so be warned you current sufferers of heartbreak) but I'm glad I read it. There is nothing more powerful than looking back a lost love to understand where it went wrong. Women do this more than men but to gain closure and acceptance we need to see how it went the way it was supposed to... and we did what we were meant to.

This book reminded me a lot of Sunshine of a Spotless Mind in that you already know from the beginning that the love is doomed but the anguish of it all is going to move you. For some, that's an issue but it was a good premise in my opinion because who can't relate to the end of love? To make things even better you get all the Irish culture you can handle (which for me is a LOT) and the insight that comes with it because Hayes has tapped into the whoas of women and their inner conflicts about love and loss. The writing was so beautiful that at times I actually highlighted sentences because I loved them so much.

This was a wonderful book that should get a lot more attention. I will look for Hazel Hayes on covers from now on.

It's a good one, but it's not my type of book. I was expecting to like because I liked the synopsis but it didn't affect me.

I loved the working back from the break up to the beginning of the relationship angle. That felt fresh, even when parts of the drama didn't. I don't mind knowing the outcome of a book so the format worked for me but I can see how that might be annoying for others--we didn't ever want to root for the boyfriend or the relationship.

Do you like messy and bittersweet love stories? The kind that don’t have a HEA? They’re not my go to type of read but this one sounded too unique to pass up. ⁣
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Synopsis: Out of Love begins at the end. A couple call it quits after nearly five years, and while holding a box of her ex-boyfriend's belongings, the young woman wonders: How could they have spent so long together? When did they fall out of love? Were there good times before the bad? These are the questions we obsess over when a relationship ends, even when obsessing can do no good. But instead of moving forward through the emotional fallout of a break-up, Out of Love moves backward in time, weaving together an already unraveled tapestry, from tragic ending to magical first kiss. Each chapter jumps further into the past, mining their history for the days and details that might help us understand love; how it happens and why it sometimes falls apart.⁣
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So a love story told in reverse is super creative, right?? Having it begin with a breakup then go backwards to see how their relationship began was so interesting and really gave a unique insight into the unraveling of a relationship. You could see exactly where things started to go wrong for them and this was such a different way to examine things, it really kept me engaged.It was a complex read and focused on mental health too which is always so great to see and I’m always drawn to books about toxic relationships too 😳 If you’re not a fan of typical HEA romances but like a sadder type of love story try this one ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Thanks @duttonbooks for my copy!

Who hasn’t loved and lost? Who hasn’t wondered how it went terribly wrong, so quickly? Out of Love, is a debut novel by Hazel Hayes, touches on this topic, so well. The book actually starts at the end and continues to go back in time to tell the story. It takes incidents & signs along the relationship and analyzes them. While looking back, can you figure out how a relationship, lost it’s love. How long will one wait to end things, when they aren’t write? Hazel Hayes is so honest with how the characters look back on these questions. I liked the way she told the story and I liked the characters. No one is really to blame.. and yet there still can be so much hurt. This is an excellent book, which focuses on such daily questions/problems. I really enjoyed it.. I hope you do too!!

Out of Love is a story of the relationship of an Irish woman and her boyfriend Theo, written in reverse, from breakup to the day they met. It was a clever idea, but the chapters were a little disjointed and I was not able to really care for the characters because the beginning is so depressing. Thanks Penguin Group and NetGalley for the opportunity.

My Review:⭐️⭐️⭐️/ 5 stars

A story about the ending of a relationship between an Irish woman and her boyfriend Theo - it is told in reverse from the moment of their break up to the day they meet at work. The start of the book is depressing and they are both so broken, dealing with the aftermath of the sorting of “things” and moving out of an apartment they both shared. The narrator mentions her brain was like a messy drawer and this is exactly what the book feels like: very unorganized. The concept is very clever and unique, but the breakdown of the chapters was very confusing. At some point, (know what a prick Theo is), I didn’t care to know how sweet he was when they met. Hazel does write with such utmost human honesty that you feel like you know this woman and in her messy brain - but you don’t want to stay there longer than needed.

It’s an interesting take on traditional contemporary fiction about love and loss, but it was not my cup of tea.

Thank you to Dutton books for the e-copy in exchange for my honest review!