F*ck Love by Tarryn Fisher

“Don’t be upset that you can’t attain constant happiness. It’s the quickest way to feel like a failure in life. If each of our lives represented a page in a book, happiness would be

the punctuation. It breaks up the parts that are too long. It closes off some things, divides others. But it’s brief – showing up when it’s needed and filling tired paragraphs with breaks.”

Talk about a bad sense of déjà vu. Helena Conway has a dream husband. Not a husband of her dreams but a husband that was in her dream. There is a very big difference. Too bad that dream husband is her best friend’s boyfriend and not her steady boyfriend she has been dating for hears. 

In her dream they have kids. But she doesn’t even want kids. And a house decorated straight from a Pottery Barn catalog. But she doesn’t even like Pottery Barn. She is an artist and designs coloring books. But Helena can’t even draw. So what makes this dream so spectacular? Kit Isley. Period.

After only that one dream, you can see why Helena pines for that life so badly. In reality, she is an accountant who can’t draw, doesn’t have any real passion, and has a mediocre boyfriend. In her dream, she has a passionate husband with a dream house and a great life. The only thing standing in her way is that her best friend Della is dating Kit and calls him “the one.”

Throughout the book, Helena struggles with what she wants to do vs. what she should do. She is used to being a passive participant in life, never really going after what she wants but just kind of along for the ride. But throughout the book, you not only see her struggle but you also see her consciously work to grow out of that constant place of settling. She makes changes, does things that are best for her, and stands up for herself. She does her best to accept reality and try to make the most of it. But she also refuses to completely disregard her fantasies.

On a completely different note, I loved that Helena loves Harry Potter. Not in the ‘reference the series a time or two’ way, but Helena truly incorporates the books into everything she does.

“…nor do I tell her that in my mind the line between Harry Potter and real life is blurry, if not non-existent.”

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Some parts kind of went on a bit longer than necessary, and some parts could have been better explained but the story was really well written. You sympathize with the heroine because of her love for her best friend, but you are really shooting for a happy ending. Helena’s life is a roller coaster of emotions, but by the end you realize that not everything has a storybook happy ending.

[4 out of 5 stars]