The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

 

DNF @ 24%

If I had taken the time to do an ounce more research and realized that the author of this book also wrote the Once Upon a Con series, I would not have bought this book. Because I really didn't like that series and it ended up having a lot of the same flaws that turned me off of this book. Contrary to what some might think, I don't actually enjoy writing negative reviews. I used to be a little more cavalier about it but now I really try to only buy books I'm sure about. And on paper, THE DEAD ROMANTICS sounded wonderful-- a ghost love story, a venture into the publishing world, lots of ANGST.

To be fair, THE DEAD ROMANTICS wasn't a bad book. It just pandered. A lot. I think Christina Lauren was mentioned like three times before the 24% mark. The main character tries just a little too hard to assure you, the reader, that she loves books. She doesn't have time to read them but she loves them and she'll be sure to tell you that constantly. She's also grossly incompetent and really twee. I try to be sympathetic towards heroines because I feel like SO MANY OF THEM get criticized for things that heroes would get a free pass for, but this one was genuinely unlikable. She's the "tiny" brand of heroine where she's made that her personality and complains constantly about people finding her cute. She's also really immature, to the point where she feels like she's in high school. And she's supposed to be good at her job? Uhh...

The plot is a little similar to Emily Henry's BEACH READ, in that it's about a heroine who writes romance novels who has given up on writing romance novels because she's given up on love, but BEACH READ was able to sell me on that a little better than this one did (even if it was also, dare I say it, a little too "I wear rompers and eat cake for breakfast and Zooey Deschanel is my patronus" twee).

But I'm a grumpy person who is very picky about chick-lit and contemporary rom-coms, so if you're super into that and you loooooooved BEACH READ and want more, more, MORE, you might love this. Thanks to Anniek for trying to BR this with me (I'm sorry you called it quitsies, too).

2 out of 5 stars