I have read far too many romance books for someone who is hopelessly single and eternally going to be alone.
But in reading all of these books, I have come to realize what I love about relationships. I swoon at a grand gesture. I’ve come to adore the fake relationship trope. And something about a smile makes my heart melt.
Robin and I have been going through book after book after book building up these preferences. We fall for the characters and we get sucked in by the storylines. We’re addicted. But the one thing we hate the most is the third act breakup.
Third act breakups are when the main characters who have spent the whole book falling in love with one another breakup with maybe 20 pages to spare. Third act breakups make me want to throw my book at the wall. They’re the absolute worst! I am a happy ending type of dreamer, and a third act breakup- though I know they’ll get together in the end- makes me feel like I’m only getting half of my happy ending. Instead of reveling in a happy ending for the entirety of the book’s ending, I’m being ripped apart by a breakup that should have never occurred. I hate when authors do this.
And Robin and I both agree that these are the worst, but after that is when our friendship gets put to the test.
Because she will not have any of it. You disappoint her once and you’re dead to her. She is not going to overlook what happened to pretend it didn’t. She’s done and the book is shut. Whereas I will have an unreasonable amount of hope. I’ll hold onto the idea that it’ll work out in the end. I’ll forgive and look past and dream about a life that goes back to what it once was before the breakup.
So I absolutely loved The Unhoneymooners, but Robin despised it. I reread the last chapter and the epilogue as soon as I woke up the next day, and Robin said it was the worst writing she’s ever read. I will think about Ethan and Olive’s fake relationship turned real relationship turned engagement over and over again because I thought it was adorable. But Robin will never read that book again.
I will hold onto hope that the people who are meant to be together will find a way to be together again. I will put my faith in something that makes absolutely no sense because it is a seemingly impossible task, but I believe in a happy ending. I hate the third act breakup, but I take so much joy in the fictional couple getting back together again.