Sex and the City meets Gossip Girl. Who would not want to read this book after seeing that.
But it fell a little flat for me. Had I been a little younger and dating, I would have enjoyed this book more.

Unique and cute format for a book! I am from the same area as the author so I felt like I knew the locations within the book! Definitely excited to read more from
This author in the future!

"Love is, well, stupid."

A laugh-out-loud and insightful page-turner in the tradition of Sex and the City meets Gossip Girl. Although not-your-typical-romance novel, it is still one that will have you falling in love in ways you'd never expect.

Inspired by true events, Danielle Dexter takes us on a journey of self-discovery and healing in book one of The Salt City Diaries series, Stupid Love.

Rachel Parker has had enough. Why does dating have to be this hard? No, really, WHY?!

After breaking up with her boyfriend and moving back to her hometown in Syracuse, NY, Rachel finds herself having to dive back into the dating pool without any life preservers to keep her afloat. She is drowning. And she doesn't understand why everything has to be so complicated. All she wants is to find "the one," but instead, she keeps dating all the wrong ones.

So, what's a girl to do? Instead of whining about it, she writes about it—in her anonymous blog, that is. But writing about love and heartbreak and actually putting her advice to good use is proving to be quite the challenge as her dating life progresses. Why? Because she never anticipated falling hard for Ben Healey: The man, the myth, the cliché—who enters her world and complicates her love life even more.

This book wasn't much my cup of tea. I thought the description was intriguing, but sadly I just didn't connect well with it.

I enjoyed how relatable this book was. As someone who is soon going to be entering their 20s, it was nice to read a romance book that was ‘not-your-typical-romance. I did not find any connection with the characters. This made it hard to read. The writing was great, but it’s just not what I was looking for.

“the only love I should be focusing on is the love I have for myself. THAT is true love.”

This is probably an inspirational and relatable book for people who have been dating for some time and, for whatever reason, haven’t found ‘the one’ yet.

It is advertised as ‘not-your-typical-romance novel’ and it is indeed not typical. Nor is it a romance novel. At all. Despite having characters and a storyline it is a self-help book in disguise. As I’m not exactly the target audience, unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it.

Next to the format that didn’t work for me I couldn’t connect with the characters. We believe in different things, and I couldn’t wrap my mind around their idea of relationships. The way they were overthinking dating was truly mind blowing. On top of that the constant reminders about self love and ‘healing that comes from within’ became repetitive and tiresome at some point.

If you are in your late twenties or early thirties, went through a bad breakup and/or are frustrated with your dating life, you may enjoy this book. If you want a romance novel, keep looking.

I’m struggling with rating because it’s not a bad book, the writing is decent and some observations quite astute. It is just not what I was looking for.

2.5 round up to 3

Thank you NetGalley, Danielle Dexter and Cupid's Arrow Publishing for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book just did not do it for me. I was so hopeful when I saw it compared to Sex and the City, and while it truly did give those vibes, it fell extremely short for me.

The story is told completely in first person by our MC Rachel, as well as told by blog posts that are written by her. Please understand, it is not that I did not like her. The dating antics that her and her friends are going through are so relatable to anyone who has dated, and especially to people in their 20s, such as the characters in this book. I loved that Rachel had such great best friends who were there for her, and each other. The emotions that she feels and goes through throughout the story are completely valid. She even gives some great, useful and relatable advice in her blog posts.

My issue with this book is that it felt like a bunch of thoughts just slapped together. The book starts off very dry, and that at almost the halfway point it started to pick up pace, and I thought okay, here we go. However, the second half of the book was a jumpy roller coaster between dull content, and not knowing what was going on because the story was jumping all over the place.

The premise and idea behind this story is good, I think it could have been delivered in a way that was more enjoyable to follow.

This was such an interesting, different type of romance. Dating is HARD. This book navigates the dating world in Rachel and her friends circle. The ups and downs, the ridiculousness, the annoying, the everything. Rachel's boyfriend, well ex boyfriend have broken up because he isn't being very faithful, but she is on a mission to figure out why people do what they do in a relationship. What she does wrong, what she can do better etc.

The book is written in first person, with sections as journal entries. We get in her head of how she is feeling, the hurt, the sadness, the happy, all of it. She goes on dates and also sounds off with her friends. This was cute, more of self discovery, and looking forward to what happens in book 2.

I love the sex and the city meets Gossip Girl premise! It makes my millennial heart happy! The characters were super relatable and their stories were very entertaining. Definitely a must read!

This book felt so relatable as a 20 something dating in nyc. There is comfort knowing that others are feeling the same struggle, fictional or not! Another reviewer compared it to Sex & The City which was a perfect comparison. This book felt like a compilation of a season of SATC but yet also crossed with a self improvement book? While I enjoyed the journey of Rachel & her friends, I couldn’t get sucked in to the book like i had hoped.

Thank you Netgalley & Cupid Arrows Publishing for the ARC!

This was so fun and relatable! Definitely Sex & the City vibes, which I loved. I enjoyed the characters journey navigating through love and loss. A very heartwarming read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Cupid’s Arrow Publishing for this arc!