Natasha's Reviews > An Optimist's Guide to Heartbreak

I'm always excited when Jennifer drops something new and i'm kinda used to her books being different type of romance with hint of mystery and they always put me through emotional trauma but i guess this ended up being totally opposite of what i expected.

This is part one of a duet so beware it ends with a cliffhanger. Also i'll put spoilers in my review so if you don't want to know the plot twist don't read any further.

So the first thing was that the trope is grumpy/sunshine and the h was way too sunshine-y for my taste and the H not as grumpy as i'd expected.

They're childhood best friends who lost touch/haven't seen each other for more than 10 years after something traumatic happened with the H's sister. It's never really revealed what happened so i thought maybe there'll be some kind of plot twist with this storyline but so far nothing, maybe in the next book? That was my first disappointment. I get this is part of a duet but everything was so vague. Did she die? Was she kidnapped? Is she in a coma?

Anyways my main issue were the main characters, Cal and Lucy.

So Lucy is in love with him her whole life and after not seeing him for 10+years she started acting very immature imo. I just couldn't connect to her character, didn't understand her actions bc once the big secret is revealed --

SPOILER - she has a heart defect and is dying i couldn't understand why she came back in his life again since she knows how much trauma Cal has suffered with what the hell happened to his sister. So why starting something with him and giving him false hope if she knows she's gonna die??

Tbh this whole storyline with her dying was very absurd to me bc it didn't line up with her actions and as much as i liked to sympathize with her i couldn't. Her actions were very contradictory from what she was saying in her inner monolgues. She wants a relationship with Cal even when he said he didn't but then when he wants to try she pulls back saying how she doesn't want to put him through the trauma of dealing with her death.

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.

That connection that they were supposed to have from childhood was non existent honestly and i think that's why i didn't enjoy this as much as i expected. the emotions were lacking.

I don't think i want to read the second book since the story is so predictable.