The Predictable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch was a joy to read. I really loved the growth with not only the two MC's, but the side characters too, it made me want to move back to a small town again because I do miss the vibe and the people sometimes.

I read this book in 3 days through audio, which is fairly quick for me and I throughly enjoyed it. I honestly don't know how else to review this book besides that it was such a joy to read and that I desperately need to buy my own copy.

5/5 stars.

Cute, fun, and a little quirky, this will definitely appeal to fans of a second chance type of trope. Revisiting high school crushes definitely brings out the nostalgia for a lot of readers, and I think it’ll be some thing that my students can relate to already being in college themselves. This had good banter and a lot of good feelings along the way.

A super sweet romance that had me swooning and almost wanting more. Happy with the overall story and loved how relatable both MCs were

In The Predicable Heartbreaks if Imogen Finch, Imogen is a woman who can never come in first place. She gets dumped for other woman, she loses contests, she just cannot win. Living at home to take care of her mom, her life takes a turn when her childhood crush returns for a funeral and Imogen tries to break her losing streak. It is a sweet story about second chances, forgiveness, resilience, love and friendship. With lots of sweetness, silliness and slapstick kind of comedy.

What kind of parent tells their child that they’ll never be first in anything for the entirety of their life? That is exactly what Imogene’s mother did that set her on a course of expecting to be forever disappointed. What comes first, the chicken or the egg? When she is finally ready to give up for her own HEA in comes Eliot. I found myself rooting for Imogene from the first paragraph and loved her journey. A feel good story with great characters and ultimately a great lesson about accountability and living life on your own terms.

The Predictable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch had such a unique idea for a romantic comedy, and I loved it. Imogen Finch has just been through her seventeenth breakup. Each relationship ended because her exes leave her for another partner. Imogen's mother predicted that she would never come first to anything or anyone. Imogen has pretty much given up, until Eilot Swift comes back into town. Eilot was her first crush and her first heartbreak when he left and promised that he would never return. When Eilot finds out the Imogen still believes in the curse, he is determined to break it. While Imogen and Eilot enter every contest they can think of, Imogen realizes her feelings for Eilot never went away and Eilot may feel the same way about her.

I loved this book. There were so many aspects to this book that I enjoyed. Imogen is such a strong character with a big heart. She is selfless in her relationships with her family and friends as well as her relationships with her exes. This book centered in on Imogen finding that she needed to put herself first over others at times. Eilot was a big part of this book as well. I loved the chemistry between Eilot and Imogen but didn't know how his travel would play into their relationship and his disdain for his family home in their hometown.

The Predictable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch made me feel all the feelings. I laughed through all the contests they entered, and my heart broke for Imogen during each of her break ups. Overall, this was a fantastic read.

The Predictable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch is out now!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to review The Predictable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book.

The Predicable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch by Jacqueline Firkins
Contemporary chick lit.
Imogen Finch has been through a lot of heartbreak. 17 and counting. Her mother made a prediction more than twenty years prior that Imogen would never come first at anything or to anyone. Is it self destructive behavior or could her mother be clairvoyant? As each man leaves Imogen, she finds it harder to commit, knowing what’s coming. When Eliot Swift returns to town to deal with a family situation, Imogen is happy but knows he will not be staying. Her heart wishes otherwise.

From the title, we know that Imogen and relationships don’t work but we hope for the best. All the contests that are attempted are amusing but sadly reinforce her curse. I wanted a magical cure but it’s not that easy. I really wanted Eliot to wake up and fortunately Imogen convinces him to seek therapy.
I don’t want to spoil the story. It’s categorized as a romance and it ultimately is but for me it was really too little, too late. Saying that, she is only twenty nine so for her, there is a lifetime ahead still.
3.5

I received a copy of this from NetGalley.

Thank you to Jacqueline Firkins, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

How cute is this cover?! I love it so much. This book plays at the emotions. I found myself laughing one second and getting teary-eyed the next. I liked Imogen and felt for her. The character development was amazing.

You can’t help but root for Imogen in this one. Cursed to never be the winner, she’s yet to best someone at a board game, come in first place in a race, or stay in a relationship…when she’s always dumped for other partners, someone smarter, prettier, or whatever the excuse is. When someone from her childhood returns, secret crush Eliot Swift, she wonders if he could be the one to break the curse. However, when she’s tied to her small town and he’s a globe trotting nomad, is it really enough to cross fate? A little bit of magic and a whole lot of relatability, this was a fun story to read. Bonus fact-this takes place on the Oregon Coast!
Thank you to Griffin for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This is out now.

Ever since age six, when Imogen’s mother (who can predict the future) tells her she’ll never be first in anything, she has set out to prove her wrong and break the curse. In childhood, it was everything from sports contests to academic pursuits, and from art school onward, it was trying to find a man who wouldn’t eventually leave her for someone better. However, overshadowing it all, is her lifelong friend and high school crush Eliot who took their mutual best friend Franny to the prom and then left town permanently after graduation, eventually ghosting her despite his promise to keep in touch and leaving her heartbroken.

Just after her 17th boyfriend tells her he’s leaving her for his co-worker, Imogen’s mother has a premonition and Eliot’s father dies. In the ten years he’s been gone, quiet, sweet, kind but tortured Eliot has wandered the globe, amassed four million followers on his YouTube channel, and kept his vow to never return to the home where he was raised and neglected by his cold parents. When he’s called back for the funeral, he isn’t just confronting his mother and the pain of his childhood, he’s also having to come clean with Imogen. Once he share his fears with her, he commits to helping her win at something, knowing that this curse has held her back from living her fullest life and following her dreams. In the process of competing in everything from corn-shucking to cupcake baking contests, is there a chance that Eliot will decide to stop running away and, instead, run towards life with Imogen?

Although this has all the elements of a second-chance, friends-to-lovers, small town romance, it fits more in the women’s lit genre with complex family situations, an enduring friendship between three friends that isn’t the love triangle it appears to be at first glance, a small town citizenry that is predictably all up in Imogen’s business, and two lovely, kind people who are great at helping each other face hard truths but whose baggage might keep them from ever forgiving themselves and the people who wronged them so that they can be together. Firkin keeps readers in suspense up until the final moments. Fans of Kristan Higgins, Katherine Center and Abby Jimenez will want to check this one out.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from St. Martin’s Griffin through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Twenty-eight-year-old Imogene Finch lives in the small Oregon town where she grew up. Scraping together enough money from part-time jobs to get by and care for her eccentric mother, she has lost her passion for creating art while succeeding in a series of unsuccessful romantic relationships. Re-enter Elliott Swift, her childhood best friend, and object of her unrequited love. After years of traveling the globe and avoiding his parents and life that stifled him, he has returned for his father’s funeral and to reconnect with Imogene and their other best friend, Franny. Through their brief and intense in-person time together and over the following year, they will learn to support and bring out the best in each other.

The book was well-written and a pleasure to read. Honestly, I read it in two days and could not put it down. I laughed a little. I cried a bit, and I enjoyed watching the transformation, challenges, and growth of the characters. Highly recommend!!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

The Predictable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch by @jfkillsdarlings was one of my most anticipated books of the year. I’m so grateful to @stmartinspress for an advanced copy of this one. I also preordered it and caved on Tuesday and purchased the audio.

Imogen Finch has a mother who may (or may not) be psychic, but either way her mother told Imogen when she was young that she was cursed to never be first at anything and Imogen believed her. And so far the curse seems to be true. She’s never won anything and she’s now going through her 17th breakup with yet another guy who’s found someone who’s actually first in his heart. But Imogen doesn’t exactly blame the guys, because someone else has always been first in her heart—Elliot Swift, her childhood best friend who left his rich, abusive family and the town they live in the second he was old enough and hasn’t looked back. But when Elliot comes back to town after his father dies, he’s determined to help Imogen break her curse.

There are a couple things I know I can count on in a Jacqueline Firkins book. Beautiful, thoughtful writing. Complex characters who aren’t perfect. And mature conversations about relationships. To say they are always grown up isn’t quite fair because she also writes YA, but even in books aimed at younger audiences, I love the characters’ conversations and the way they go about communicating. This book might have some of my favorite of those conversations. I loved the way Imogen and Elliot talked and respected each other. I loved the way their conversations unfurled and the way they trusted each other with the things they felt. It was really, really lovely.

I’d absolutely recommend this book to romance lovers who like characters who are more complex. While Elliot is dreamy in a lot of ways, his decisions also made me a little crazy, and I think readers looking for a perfect hero who does and says everything right might struggle. I’m not always crazy about those heroes, and ultimately I loved Elliot and Imogen even if I might have made different choices.

Unfortunately I didn't get very far into this book. I loved the idea of the book but it was slow and really didn't excite me. I had to dnf at 15%.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book had all the makings for it to become one of my favourites - however (spoiler alert), I wasn't overly impressed with it and found it just average. I'm a fan of the friends-to-lovers and the second chance romance tropes. I really liked the lead male and female love interests individually - flawed yet very human. However, I wasn't a fan of them together. The main female character seemed to have more chemistry with the town's bartender than the her love interest, and it appeared to me that she only wanted to be with him because of their history (and nostalgia). The main female character was worried throughout the book of being second in priority to everyone and everything, and it felt like in the end, that was what she was for her love interest - which I personally didn't think she should have settled for.

I did really like the writing, the other characters and the setting, and would check out other books by this author - it's just the romance I couldn't get behind 100%.

This book was a change from the contemporaries I've been reading recently and I really enjoyed that. It's a small town friends to lovers romance, where the two main characters have quite obviously had feelings for each other for a long time but were too afraid to say anything.
After college Imogen returned to her hometown to be there for her mother and what was once her passion of drawing has become less than a hobby now. Tie that into her mother predicting she'd never come first at anything when Imogen was much younger and now after her 17th breakup she's just about had it. When her long-time friend Eliot returns for the first time in ten years he becomes determined to change her outcome on life.
I love seeing the character development from both Imogen and Eliot throughout the story, I thought it was written really well. I wasn't entirely sure how the end was going to go and I like that that kept me interested the whole time. I will say what ended up happening in the end fit the story perfectly.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the arc.

Imogen Finch gave up on her hopes of an art career when it became clear her mother needed a caregiver. Now she makes her home in an Oregon shore town, surrounded by a community that knows and supports her and her mother. She works multiples jobs to make ends meet and has a string of broken relationships.

But then the town mogul dies suddenly, and his son, Eliot, her longtime crush, returns home for the first time in a decade. He is determined to help Imogen break her long curse of always coming in second before he leaves, but ultimately makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy by putting his own wanderlust before Imogen.

Imogen and her friend, Frankie, are such a delight, as are most of the quirky characters in this book. Eliot seems a little selfish and the backstory too long but it’s so much fun, it’s easy to overlook these minor flaws. #ImogenFinch #NetGalley

I enjoyed this. Imogen is an artist who moves back to her small town to take care of her quirky mom while juggling about six jobs. She struggles with self-esteem believing she is cursed to never come in first. Elliot, Franny and Imogen were best friends in school and Elliot was the love of her life but he didn't know it. When his dad passes away he comes home from his traveling and the three friends re-connect. It's a romance with the friends to lovers trope but different.

I felt the characters were pretty well developed. I found Imogen to be endearing. She always puts herself first, with men hoping to be "the one" for them but she is so sweet to her mom. Her mom was such a quirky character. I wish that character was more developed and we learned more of her background. Franny kind of annoyed me in the beginning but she grew on me and Imogen couldn't ask for a better friend.

I would like to thank Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a digital copy.

What a heartwarming and lovely love story! Full of relatable and somewhat messing characters. This all makes for a nice read.
Friends-to-lovers
Dogs
Second chance romance
Phenomenal characters
All in all, a very unexpected unique and intriguing story
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read this book for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

I thoroughly enjoyed the exploration of what brings joy and the main characters’ self-worth in this book. I related a lot to the idea of feeling lost in adulthood and unsure of what path to take.

I appreciated the emotional journey that Imogen took the reader on, and I thought this was balanced well with the central plot.

I love that we got to see some of Imogen’s past relationships sprinkled into the story!

Thank you to St. Martin’s Griffin for an eARC. All thoughts are my own.

Imogen is left with few choices after college when a foreclosure notice hits her mom's front stoop. She runs home and works tirelessly to survive. But it takes a village and luckily for her, their small hometown supports them with dozens of part time jobs for Imogen and a powerhouse phone tree when her mother wanders off. In the meantime, Imogen's love lift is laughable and no one sticks around. After a somewhat terrible breakup - in a very long stream of them - Imogen runs into her childhood crush and former best friend, Eliot, while cleaning his parent's palatial home after the death of his father and life suddenly looks brighter.
Here's the thing... I really like Jacqueline's writing style. Imogen's character arc is extremely well done and I found her to be very relatable. It can be so easy to get into survival mode caring for those around you. But the romance was not what I wanted and this is one of the few times where I was rooting for a love triangle (as subtle as the potential could be) and hoping that the secondary love interest would end up with the heroine. I loved how Eliot brought out Imogen's renewed drive for self-care but have some serious thoughts about how much she was too willing to compromise for their relationship to succeed. (#TeamDutch)
Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy. All thoughts are my own.