Edi Parcell, recently engaged, is shocked when her fiancé proposes a three-month break to explore outside of their relationship. Upon entering the dating scene after being with only her childhood sweetheart for years, Edi meets Winifred and finds herself unexpectedly developing feelings for her. Now Edi must make a decision: return to her old relationship, or continue with Winifred.

Unfortunately, The Break Up just didn’t do it for me. Like so many others I was really hoping to enjoy this book! I’m newer to the romance genre and the synopsis sounded so good – I was expecting a sapphic romcom. However, this is not what the book is about at all.

First, for the superficial reason: I couldn’t get behind Edi as a character. She felt like a doormat to everyone in her life (fiancé, family, friends), and she even identifies herself as ‘The Reassurer’. Not every FMC needs to be a badass, but Edi continuously let the opinions and wants of others outrank her own and I found that very frustrating to read. Now, by the end of the book she’s got a bit of backbone, but personally there wasn’t enough character growth for my liking.

Second, the more critical reasons: The pacing of The Break Up is incredibly wonky. I found if difficult to follow how much time had passed, especially between chapters, and it took me out of the reading experience trying to figure out the chronology.

Additionally, the book is very heavily based in British humour and stereotypes. This might make it bearable for people familiar with or like one or the other, but at times it felt cringy to read what I felt was an overuse of semi-retired British vernacular and phrases – it reads a bit like a British caricature. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with that style, it’s just entirely not what I was expecting, nor was it something I was interested in reading.

Lastly, I’m not even going to touch on the transphobia portion because honestly, I don’t see why I should have to justify that transphobia is bad and we shouldn’t have that representation in books. You can use other opinions/character traits to make a character dislikable without making them transphobic.

Thank you to NetGalley and HQ Digital for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.