Many romances take the ‘best friends fall in love’ route. Not all of them do a successful job at it. Josh and Hazel’s Guide To Not Dating does an awesome job at it.
I had heard a tremendous amount of praise for this novel from romance enthusiasts. However, for some reason I couldn’t get my hands on it for a long time. When I finally got the book, I hesitated as I wasn’t sure if the novel would meet the high expectations.
So, after finishing a particularly cheesy and predictable contemporary romance, when I found myself losing faith in the ability of contemporary authors to write a ‘beautiful yet believable’ love story, I thought that it might be a good time to give this book a chance. After all…my expectations from all romance novels was pretty low.
Thankfully, it didn’t disappoint me.
I feel that the strength of this novel is in its realistic story line. The feelings simmer before getting red hot, the relationship passes through the trajectory of attraction to like to love to passion, and for once, the characters aren’t living in denial of their feelings until the last page. There is no silly misunderstanding that is escalated to ‘major conflict’ levels, the guy doesn’t go all ‘alpha male’ when he finds the girl talking to another man, and the conflict (when it occurs) finds its resolution in the most non-dramatic way possible. Isn’t that how real life is?
It is believable yet captivating. The feelings and the relationship is like what you share with your best friend, however, the characters themselves are so novel that you can’t predict what will ultimately happen. To be specific, Hazel Bradford is a girl I have never encountered in any novel ever before. Yes, I’ve read about plenty of bubbly, weird and funny female characters before, however, I found none as adorably eccentric as Hazel.
I did find the story to be a bit too fast paced in the beginning, but I guess that might have been because the first chapter is from Hazel’s point of view and I wasn’t ready for the tornado that is Hazel’s mind.
Overall, a wonderful romance. An even better book about friendship. If you are tired of reading romances where love basically means the inability of the characters to keep their hands off each other, pick this one up.
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