The Heartbreak Rule

Great read

This one took me a little while to get into but once I did I was hooked, great story and you don’t often read books about comedians, especially female ones and I loved that angle of the book

The main character is Gemma and the book follows her as she wants to make it big as a stand-up comic, having said that I felt that the main back story of the book was The Indigo bar and The Capitol theatre which are both the main venues used throughout the story, about saving the Indigo and using the Capitol as a temporary home. The side characters are great also, Dani, Cady, Matilda and Oscar among others that show up throughout the book. I do think the characters are well written and it’s nice to read about a group of friends all supporting each other and not trying to tear each other down all being in a similar business. I started this book straight after another where I didn’t really like the female lead character and at the beginning of this book I really didn’t like the female main character either so I stopped reading it for a couple of weeks, but after finishing the book I came to actually like Gemma and the way she was. As much as I enjoyed Gemma and Reid’s back and forth, I really enjoyed the side characters and what they brought to the table. It was a solid story that continued and flowed well throughout the chapters. This is definitely a rom-com book, with an enemies-to-lovers vibe. it was a great in-between book - so if you need something quick and enjoyable between larger books or a series this was a great little read. I would recommend this book to others it was a nice easy read, I wouldn’t say there was much spice, there were some scenes but nothing much. I’m trying not to use half stars but I would give this a solid 3.5 - It was better than a 3 star but it wasn’t a 4 star.

I laughed, and I cried, and enjoyed reading about believab unbelievable characters. I sympathised, sometimes with one central character, sometimes with the other, and sometimes I would have knocked their heads together, well, perhaps not literally, but you know what I mean - if you haven’t read The Heartbreak Rule yet, what are you waiting for???

I found this a bit of a cringey read to be honest. My main problem was that the story was based around this woman being a comedian, and to buy in to that you kind of have to buy in to her being a comedian, but none of the “material” was funny, or even endearing. And the initial back and forth “banter” between the characters was unfunny and cringe too. It’s a tough gig to pull of writing a story about a comedian because the reader is not using their imagination to picture the talent, it’s literally right there, and sadly it fell completely flat for me. Loved the Rhode boys stories though!

Was so funny, the banter between Reid and Gemma was great. Bit of spice and the tension between them was intense. Loving everything Stephanie Archer has written so far, can't wait to see what's next!