Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating

“Read” would be a very loose term for what I did with this book. I actually read the first 6 chapters, drastically skimmed the middle, and halfway read the last 4 chapters and the epilogue. The plot itself was entertaining enough, and the synopsis made it sound like it would be funnier than I thought it was.

Hazel's character was way over the top quirky. I do not mind at all having the main girl character be a little odd because that's fun to me, but it felt as though the authors tried too hard to make Hazel a weird character and it came out being more cringe. She was funny in a sense, but there was way too much second-hand embarrassment. She was also a little trashy, which is evident from even the very beginning of the book. One of my first thoughts was “oh we are in for a wild ride” (but not in a good way).
I did like that she was always herself and didn't totally change some of her quirks to be liked by others.

It was also steamier than I was wanting, and there were more suggestive remarks by characters than I like. I enjoy rom coms being fun, cute, and romantic but not overtly spicy.

The end took a serious turn and ended pretty abruptly before going into the epilogue. I generally love epilogues – there are some books I loved that had epilogues I may have loved even more than the book itself. It felt odd that it was basically a random halt, during this major plot event thrown in at the very end, before jumping ahead 7 (ish) years.

Overall, I can see it being very entertaining for people who are not bothered by the things I mentioned. It just wasn't for me.