Review: The Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers by Lynn Weingarten

From Goodreads:
If there’s an upside to having your heart broken, it’s this: A broken heart makes you brave.

The first day of sophomore year doesn’t go the way Lucy planned. After a summer apart from her boyfriend, she’s ready to greet him with a special surprise and instead gets a shocking one in return: He’s breaking up with her. Beyond devastated, Lucy has no idea how she’s going to make it through homeroom, let alone the rest of her life.

Enter three stunning girls with the unnatural ability to attract boys and an offer Lucy can’t refuse: They can heal her heart in an instant. And then she’ll be one of them—a member of a sisterhood that is impervious to heartbreak and has access to magic distilled from the tears of brokenhearted boys. But to gain their power, Lucy must get a guy to fall in love with her the old-fashioned way, and then break his heart in the next seven days.

While the sisterhood may need another Heartbreaker, Lucy’s only desire is to get her ex back. But how far is she willing to go, and who is she willing to cross to get what she wants?

My Rating: 3 stars

Thoughts:

The Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers has me torn for multiple reasons. First of all, the sisterhood was original, and I really liked Olivia, Gil and Liza (though the descriptions of Liza as “big” didn’t really make sense to me). When I started reading this book I was expecting more of a cutesy contemporary YA romance where the heroine goes through a few trials before winning back the boy she loves. It was that kind of story in some ways, but it had a lot more magic than I thought it would (in a good way) so I was happily surprised.

On the other hand, the main character and her attempts at romance fell completely flat for me. Yes, it’s supposed to be tragic that Lucy’s boyfriend broke up with her, but after reading the first hundred pages or so, it made no sense why she was so obsessed with him in the first place. There weren’t any descriptions of him that showed his redeeming qualities, other than that he liked to take pictures, but Lucy still kept going after him. My main problem with this was that Lucy spent 95% of the book fantasizing about getting Alex back, so there wasn’t room for any actual romance in the book; there was potential for things to happen, but nothing ever did.

Luckily, this book improved after Lucy finally realized her ex was a dud (sadly, that wasn’t until there were only like 20 pages left in the book). I would give this book a higher rating if it weren’t for all of Lucy’s pointless attempts to win Alex back. But, her final realization was worth the wait, and while I can’t say I loved this book, it was still worth reading.