Not Your Valentine

“Not Your Valentine” by Jackie Lau is a short romance book that didn’t exactly meet my expectations.

Helen got dumped on Valentine’s Day. Publicly and it went viral on social media.

A year later, it still feels like it follows her. Lots of people feel sorry for her and she feels sorry for herself.

To avoid getting sympathetic stares, she decided to ask her longtime friend Taylor to pretend to be her boyfriend for the holidays. So, she doesn’t look alone for Valentine’s Day.

As she starts hanging out with him, she realizes that through their interactions he isn’t a bad guy to romantically date.

I loved how introverted Helen is in this book. A lot of times you come across characters who are super confident and such. Helen was awkward and kept to herself. It felt a little refreshing on the character dynamic.

Though I really felt that this was a quick and easy read, it was too short and it felt like it was lacking some details. 

I felt like I would have a little context on her breakup with the previous guy on Valentine’s Day. It was mentioned that Helen laughed at his business idea and felt that this was a good match. At that point, with no context, I felt like there was a real reason she got dumped and I had a hard time feeling sorry for the character. It wasn’t until the middle of the book that she actually said that this guy was rude and not a great guy, to begin with. But by then, I have already formed my opinion of Helen.

I didn’t really feel like I got to know Taylor as the love interest. I don’t feel like I got to know him in this book. Maybe it was the length of this story, but I don’t think there was enough time for me as a reader to get to know him. 

I didn’t particularly like the end. It was cringey and I just didn’t care for it.

I really wanted to love this book but felt that if this was longer, some details could have been ironed out.