Finish senior year by flying under the radar. Maintain 4.0 GPA Try not to kill boss No boys. Period. *Definitely don't fall for Braden DiMarco's charms... How hard can it be? Stella Bellemore is about as interested in love as she is contracting the plague. She’s seen what can happen. At least once a week someone is getting dumped at the café she works at. And there might have been a not so little incident freshman year that almost destroyed her. That’s why she’s made a pact with herself to abstain from boys until she graduates college. But the evil universe has other plans. Her simple life of school, work, and her mother is about to be turned on its head when she’s forced into tutoring Braden DiMarco, resident serial dater and best friend to her ex-boyfriend AKA the devil himself.
A.R. Perry is a #1 Amazon bestselling author who has lived all over the US due to her wanderlust husband. She has a degree in photography and massage therapy yet spent the majority of her twenties working in human resources.
In her spare time, she can be found snuggled on the couch reading, beating the bejeezus out of a punching bag, or sleeping because the day is practically done. Thank goodness for coffee, chocolate, and Panic! At The Disco, or nothing would ever get done.
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Heartbreak Café was one of those books that I really only read for a challenge. It seemed interesting and the cover made me thirsty for coffee. In it, you will meet Stella.. and she's spunky. I liked her and I also didn't care for her at the same time. She had snark.. and I do love that. However, she doesn't really care for guys because they are straight up douche canoes. It sucks when one thing would ruin them all for her. Stupid boys.
Then there's Braden.. and I felt a bit bad for her. Mostly because of how she acted towards him or treated him. I get that he's a boy.. but damn girl, calm your tits please. He was so sweet and the opposite of the douche that hurt her. HOWEVER, he's still dumb AF in my eyes. I have no idea why he's friends with said douche.. and yeah, that's pretty much it. Drop the trash and I'll love ya buddy.
Other than that, I did enjoy the friendships in this book.. and the snark. Love the snark.
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1.5-2 stars
See, funny story—well, funny depending on who you ask—the jocks at school have a habit of bringing their girlfriends here to dump. I’ve dubbed the place Heartbreak Café, but since the owner said it would be bad for business, he’s opted to keep the name he chose.
I want to be truthful upfront and say this book had a three-star rating through most of the eye-rolling plot until I read the end. The end ruined the book in my opinion. Also not a huge fan when the Lord's name is taken in vain either. This is not exactly clean due to sexual references and cuss words.
This is the fair warning: SPOILERS!!!! Spoilers everywhere!
As for me. I’m short and chunky and so bitter that most days I find people hard to deal with let alone like them.
Stella doesn't have the best outlook of herself due to her jerk of a boyfriend from freshman year had sex with her then took pictures and blasted them everywhere literally four minutes afterward. Yikes. Then he torments her with snide comments throughout their high school careers.
On the first day of senior year, Stella accidentally spills coffee on Braden who she had watched a day earlier dump his girlfriend publicly. After this, it seems Braden is everywhere. Then she gets stuck tutoring him. Braden tries and tries to get closer to Stella, but after freshman year she doesn't quite trust the guy. Especially since his best friend is her ex.
The plot was okay. The characters were okay, until the end. The end is where I have my biggest problem. So Jesse, aka Stella's ex, planned a certain picture to make it seem like Stella cheated on Braden. Braden doesn't even try to confront Stella or anything. Then Stella sees Braden with the girl he had dumped earlier in the book at the place she works which she call Heartbreak Café. They break up. Then Braden's ex posts on social media stuff to make it look like she and Braden are back together.
Stella has every right to be angry at Braden. At the end of the book, Braden comes to apologize and all that blah blah blah. But instead of flushing it out a bit more and having Braden and Stella ease back into a relationship or Braden grovel a bit more, Braden kisses Stella and she forgives him. That's the end.
What in the crap is that? How ludicrous? Hence why the low rating of the book. I hate when things are written off so hunky-dory like that. It makes the offense seem okay and that when a guy does that it's okay to take him back in a heartbeat. Um no!
If I am the only one who thinks this that is fine by me. But seriously I wish authors wouldn't do that.
Sticking with the whole you’re-not-getting-to-me attitude, I smile and tilt my head to the side. “You don’t have to play it cool, we both know these pants are amazing. It’s how I score all the guys.” His eyebrows shoot up as he steps forward, bracing a palm on the doorframe. “All the guys, huh? You saying I have competition?
This book wasn’t as great as the other books that A.R. Perry has written. But with that being said, I’m giving this book 4.75 stars. I liked Stella’s snarky comments, I found them to be humorous, but I felt like she was really rude to Braden. I wish that Braden and Stella talked to each other about the big main issue. Stella should have told Braden what happened between Jesse and herself. I wasn’t expecting the ending to end like that. I was expecting to have at least another chapter. Or even an epilogue. The ending fell a little short for me. I love that the book was full of drama, emotions, relationships, friendships, family drama. The characters were interesting and I absolutely love Braden. I love that Stella pushes back against her bullies. And Jesse, come on man! Because you can’t have Stella, means no one can? Get over yourself. Overall, this book was fun, and a page turner.
That was really frustrating to read !! I expected something cute but this was really annoying as hell, Stella was really boring and didn't progress during the story at all, and I didn't like her story with Braden .. it just doesn't make sense
So the story is about Stella who had a huge scandal during her freshman year in highschool, and now it's her senior year and she just wants to lie low until graduation .. but Beaden who is the best friend of the guy who is responsible for her scandal takes interest in her .. and he is trying to convince her it's the real deal
I didn't enjoy the book and it was really boring to me .. I wish if I can discuss it with my sister Reem since she recommended it to me, multiple times .. but she doesn't like to discuss book :( .. so yeah
Those are some horrible Vicious teens I’ve ever read. Jesse is just a user jerk a loser and he should’ve gotten way worse then he did and dragged that bimbo with him . Along with their friends. B should’ve given her the benefit of the doubt and she should’ve been honest when they were getting serious.
I’m always down for a trope where the popular guy falls for the wallflower. Didn’t like the fat-shaming and bullying much but the romance part was sweet.
Seriously one of the most horrible teen books ever written . It's about this overweight girl who has a crush on this really hot looking guy. He likes her but she keeps thwarting his advances. She's mean to him but he still chases after her. Shes bitter and mean and he still puts up with her. She has no redeeming quality and yet he likes the overweight girl. It was an endless cycle of love, hate and her being passive aggressive. So painful to read, I gave up halfway.
The characters: Stella - Yes she went through something traumatic freshman year and she did have a reason to be so against dating/boys, but she was way too quick to jump to conclusions many times. Not only did she make assumptions, but she often freaked out and did a complete 180. Braden - I'm conflicted about Braden. While he didn't pressure Stella into anything she didn't want, he also was trying to "date" her without making it seem like a date. He never took it too far, but in turn, that's why it caused some conflict with Stella. I also don't love how he did go back to Michelle so quickly. Zari - What was the point of including her? She was barely in the story, only when it was convenient. I really don't like when main characters don't have friends or aren't present in each other's lives. I do like that she pushed Stella out of her comfort zone, but I just wished she was included more. Stella's mom - Was so mean to Stella. I get that she was looking out for her, but rather than accusing Stella and enacting insane, overbearing rules, there were better ways to go about making sure Stella didn't repeat her mistake. It was actually dumb to not allow her to date to hang out with boys. How is Stella ever allowed to learn boundaries if her mom tells her no every time? And calling her daughter a slut was completely uncalled for. Jesse - Horrible person. What he did to Stella freshman year was immature and rude but he was really just a conniving evil person.
I really hate how the school dealt with the Stella and Jesse situation. If the school was involved freshman year, I highly doubt they would allow Stella and Jesse to be in the same classes. Also, the minute she started getting bullied, the school should have done an investigation. It was basically their fault everything came to blows with the boys. They also would not have let someone get away with the locker prank. I would also like to have some faith in kids and think that when they saw Jesse harass Stella multiple times, a classmate would have stepped in and stopped.
I appreciate that Braden had his own struggles with his family, but I would have liked a bigger resolution, especially with his father.
I wish I liked it more, but there were just too many flaws.
At first, I was like this book is boring, not sure I’ll be able to finish it. So I went to read others. Then after reading the others... I went back to finish this book; I can say after I got back Into this book. It wasn’t boring. It was good.
I thought that Braden was an idiot half the time when it came to situations with Stella. He was a fool when it came to his ex-girlfriend Michelle and his best friend Jesse. Smh 🤦🏽♀️.
Like he believes Michelle and Jesse over Stella. When in fact Michelle smashed Jesse recently. Whereas Stella got humiliated and embarrassed when Jesse showed her pictures to everybody freshman year. Which was two years ago.
But Braden didn’t want to listen to Stella and what she had to say about that situation with her losing her V-card to her slim bag ex-boyfriend Jesse. To Jesse and Michelle doing fake text messages to fake pictures; where it looks like Stella and Jesse kissing.
I didn’t want Stella to forgive Braden that easily because she was being an ass. It took him a while to come to his senses 😒🙄...
The only thing I can agree on was she could’ve told him early on about her and Jesse but come on even if she did Braden still would’ve got mad maybe because of Jesse and Michelle's situation. But common sense would’ve told him something not right when Both Michelle and Jesse always harassed Stella on a daily bases.
Which got me to thinking Jesse always wanted Stella but didn’t want to look like a fool or lose his popularity because he liked Stella. Especially when he found about Stella and Braden he was BIG mad about that. To harassing her after work to saying she’ll always be his. Like boy bye. To Michelle, I think she was jealous of Stella so she figures the only way to bring her down was to bully her 🙄 which is stupid because Stella was nicer and a bigger and better person unlike her (Michelle) and loser Jesse who I’m glad got expelled heck I don’t know why Michelle wasn’t suspended or expelled...
First of all, the main character isn't really likeable. Like, I'm all for snarky, witty, sarcastic girl characters, but this one was just kind of an ass to be honest. She treats her best friend like crap, she gets pissed at the littlest things, she gets mad at Braden for things that are her fault. She also has like zero self confidence (some incident that happened when she was a freshman where her ex showed nude pics of them to everyone at a party, it spends the whole book saying "what happened during freshman year" but they don't elaborate that much)-Braden literally gives her a bunch of compliments, tells her he likes her, then runs away. The next day she has literally convinced herself that she was dreaming and it was fake, which is kind of dumb.
Braden is sweet. I like his character. Thats basically all I have to say about him, hes the typical popular guy in every romance.
My favorite part about this book was the banter between Braden and the main girl (I already forgot her name) towards the end of the book. They are both very sweet when they are together (when main girl doesn't have her walls up like she normally does) and I smiled a lot reading about them.
Popular bitchy girl is super dumb and fake and territorial, like every other main bitch girl in romance books. She manipulates them, main girl gets pissed at Braden and basically runs away before he can explain, they make up again later, the end.
In all, I rate this book like a 2.5 out of 5. It's cute, but some parts of the book were frustrating and it just lacked. But im a really picky romance novel reader, so if you want a cute romance novel with snarky girls, hot boys, and manipulative mean girls, this one is for you. This one just wasn't my favorite
Also im not this much of a pessimist everywhere lol
LOVED this book. I grew up in SLC and it all just seemed so real to me. I identified with the main character so much, just like me in HS. The language was real, the situations were real. I am so tired of reading YA books that don't deal with sex and/or where none of the character's cuss...that's just so far from realistic, and a huge problem with YA today. The genre hasn't evolved with the generations. ANYWAY, I'm an author of YA too and The author totally nailed it. Dear author, I feel like we should be best friends. Look me up: Mallory Lopez
The behavior of the bullies in this book was brutal to read. I’m glad Stella pushes on regardless of how others treated her or allowed other to treat her. I wish she took more actions against Jesse and Michelle, the high road is for the birds. Braden oddly had just as little in the way of friendships as Stella. Except his were all fake and shallow. Wish the ending was a little more happy but good quick read.
An easy and quick read. The plot was a little different from the usual high school books, and interesting enough to keep me reading on, however there was no character development and the final chapter felt very rushed, leaving a lot of loose ends. Despite this, I did enjoy the book and will continue to read more by this author.
I got to 35% and gave up. Sounded good but dragged. Honestly, I wasn't impressed with the main characters at all. Stella just sounded bitter and wasn't even nice to her best friend. To much snark to be likeable.
Started as a 5-star read, but then the Hero called her a bitch over a stupid misunderstanding, and she conveniently forgave him before the story ended abruptly. Can’t believe I wasted my whole day on this t****.
At this point I feel like kindle is mocking me for all I bought, read and immediately forgot about. Its a YA, romance-drama. And it was worthy enough of buying in the middle of the night, so definitely recommend it for that.
Another book desperately in need of an editor. I miss the old days when all published books were well written, even trashy romances. Mills & Boons at the very least were still good for your grammar and vocabulary.
Love this story. You instantly fall in love with Stella and her moody temper. She's a typical girl and she is refreshing to read. The only downside is I'd want more of them after the ending it's to bam bam done! Otherwise a great read and highly recommend xxx
The only reason I gave it four stars instead of five is that the ending was completely rushed. But other than that, I think their story was cute, and I liked that it showed them while they were dating. Most books end when they get together.
Typical boy meets girl, boy messes up, boy wins girl back. Not much off from the typical story with minimal character development. Great distraction from stress.
Such a great read. Very sweet romance and just the right amount of anguish. I really hope there is more for Braden and Stella. I would definitely pick up a book 2.
The book was okay....high school romance and typical heartbreak between the two and they work things out and back together when the truth comes to light.
I liked this one a lot until the end. It wasn’t bad but not as satisfying as it could’ve been. Great author, though! I’ll definitely be looking for her in the future.
The book overall was okay in my opinion. The first half was great but towards the ending, it started to get a little boring. Other than the ending the book was fine.