A great read, I really enjoyed this book, Thank you to NetGalley and publishers for gifting me this book

This book was good, perhaps a little predictable, but a good read anyway.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

Not a love story, but a story I loved!
A great light hearted summer read, fun and fresh which left me smiling.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my feedback.

This wasn't really my kind of book. It was bright, well-written and moved along at a good pace, but the perkiness was a bit annoying, and I found it hard to care the characters or the narrative. Overall - good book for the right reader. Personally - gave up a few chapters in.

Maggie was one of those characters who really annoyed me at times but yet it just started making me like her more. The character development throughout the story was really interesting and it was great to see Maggie learn and grow from her new experiences. It was a great and funny read!

DNF @50%

I chose not to finish this book because it really just doesn't fit with my demographic, which is absolutely fine and totally my own fault. The book centres around Margaret, who is taking steps to improve her lifestyle and become a happier person. This is by no means a bad plot, it just isn't something that I find myself wanting to read at this moment in time. If you're into that self-improvement style of book, and also BBC's Fleabag, then this could be one for you!

This Is Not A Love Story is a genuinely funny and lovely book about one woman’s quest for a better life.
Maggie is not happy in her work or her relationship. She spends too much time on Instagram and Facebook and believes the people she sees online have ideal lives and that she should have such a life.
So Maggie writes a list for herself of the things she wants to do which she believes will give her a better life.
Maggie is a flawed character. She is impulsive and rather self absorbed but she is also very, very funny. Can Maggie change her ways? Can she do anything to achieve the life that she wants?
This book is a nice, amusing, lighthearted debut novel. I would definitely read another book by this author.
Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A sincere thank you to the publisher, author and Netgalley for providing me with an ebook copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This is not my usual genre, I’m more into crime/thriller books and even psychological thrillers too so I am extremely pleased and grateful to them for opening up my mind to something totally different.

A cute read, I enjoyed it, but I thought I as going to be laughing more than I did, it sounded so funny. I did enjoy it, but there were just a few laughs rather than the guffaws I was expecting, a great distraction and a nice story though.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

‘This Is Not A Love Story’ was the perfect book to get me out of my reading slump. Maggie finds herself trapped in a life she doesn’t want with an uninspiring job, a suffocating boyfriend and a growing waistline. She’s know for being impulsive and we follow Maggie as she deals with the consequences of making rash decisions in a bid to live a happier life.
I enjoyed the writing in this novel, the overall tone is amusing and I laughed a few times but Maggie is still very cynical and hard on herself. She’s a flawed character and I didn’t support all of her choices/thoughts but it just made her more human, a realistic person. There are so many threads to her story including her job, her love life, her friends and her family but it didn’t feel like too much going on.
My one concern was when she began going to the gym because I was expecting her to finally be happy if she’d lost loads of weight. I’m glad this wasn’t the case and it showed that being active, eating good and looking after yourself can make you feel better mentally even if there’s no big physical changes.
I think this is a great read if you need something to cheer you up or you’re in a bit of a slump. It was fast paced and amusing, worth a read!

I really struggled to get into this book, I nearly considered DNFing it before I was a quarter of the way through. However I stuck with it and although it did pick up towards the end of the book, overall the story was let down by the first half.
I found the writing style was just not my taste, it felt like a lot of rambling from the protagonist with constant tangents and felt a little messy. Because of this I found the main character to be really unlikable, she was rude and i just did not vibe well with her, this ultimately led me to not be that interested in her growth and development throughout the novel as I honestly didn't care that much.
The last 20% of the book was really good and I just wish that more of that was present earlier in the story and not just all at once in the last little bit.
This book just wasn't for me but I can definitely see how it could appeal to other people it was fun and quirky in places and could totally be someone else's cup of tea.
Unfortunately for me it was only 2 out of 5 stars.

This is not a love Story by Mary Hargreaves a funny and real four-star read. I enjoyed this one and fond it to be very funny, but it had real and honest gripping parts that makes you look into yourself and really have a good look, but it just missed the mark a little bit. Maggie will speak to you though; she will explain to you why she doesn’t feel fulfilled and what she is searching for. That voice is what makes this story, its what makes this a compelling story.

This book was a book of fresh air for me. It has been a while since I have read a book that is as funny as This is Not a Love Story. The lighthearted nature of this novel what just what I needed and provided for a great escape.

Maggie is a mess, a genuine mess and I love her for it. It made her such a relatable and easy to like character. Everything she goes through is realistic and although slightly mad, it could happen to anyone. I found myself fully entertained by Maggie and her life, laughing and crying with her.

The real star of this novel for me was seeing the change in Maggie on her journey of self-development. She starts the novel with a very impulsive personality and although it made for hilarious reading, her transition from this character to one that wholeheartedly loves herself was really quite something. It is unusual to find the journey of a character so relatable but I really felt like I understood Maggie and her thought process, or lack thereof. This is all down to Mary Hargreaves’s writing style and characterisation.

The novel is told from the first person perspective of Maggie which I felt suited the story that was being put across. It meant that, as a reader, you felt all the embarrassment, love and sadness that Maggie felt, making it at points, quite an emotional read.

I loved this novel and found it refreshing that romance is not at the centre of the novel. There are a lot of romance novels that have maybe similar characters to Maggie but because of the type of novel they are the character development gets swept away with the storyline. I liked the change and being able to really feel and experience the change in Maggie because of things that she decided to change, rather than because of a love interest.

Although Maggie does go on a journey of self-discovery I also loved that it was in such a realistic and organic way. It was still lighthearted and full of hilarious moments that I think we can all relate to in the battle to improve ourselves. Maggie’s journey was written in such a way that it wasn’t condescending to the reader and was in no way preachy.

The other characters in the novel were all well described and played key roles in the plot. I enjoyed the dynamic between Maggie and other members of her family and it was a joy to read them becoming closer.

When I say I laughed out loud at this novel I genuinely mean it. Mary Hargreaves did a wonderful job with this novel and I would recommend this to anyone who needs cheering up or needs to de-stress. I loved stepping in to Maggie’s life and hopefully you will too.

Mary Hargreaves’ ‘This Is Not A Love Story’ is a funny and uplifting book. Maggie is a mess, an actual mess. It’s perfectly normal to feel like a mess every now and then, especially in your twenties, where there are more things you haven’t figured out yet than those you did. But at the beginning of ‘This Is Not A Love Story’, Maggie is a bigger mess than most are on a daily basis. She has no idea where her life is heading, it seems that everyone around has it all together, except her: with the job that she hates, a boyfriend she doesn’t want to be with, and family she’s not that close to. Instagram and other social media are not helpful, always showing her perfect images of other people’s perfect lives, something we all see all the time, even if the reality is often far from that.

Maggie makes a list of all the things she would like to change: like changing her job and starting to exercise more. But takes her drunk outburst and losing her job, to actually stop and find the way to make firstly small changes that lead to bigger changes in her life. While I generally enjoyed ‘This Is Not Love Story’, with its often funny and uncomfortably real moments, I felt like the resolution came too quickly, and that almost everything has been too perfect by the end of the book. But overall, ‘This Is Not A Love Story’ has been a great escape from reality - it’s an easy and relatable read, where you can laugh at Maggie’s struggles (instead of focusing on your own problems), and yet understand what she’s going through.

Loved this novel from Hargreaves. Gives me modern day Bridget Jones vibes! A quick summer read, great if you don’t like romance as the main focus of your novels