Book Review: One Star Romance | Laura Hankin

I’m always up for a new Laura Hankin, after enjoying two of her prior books. Happy and You Know It is the one that gets the most attention (it was a Book of the Month pick, after all), but I actually though The Daydreams was her best. A story about child stars grown up and sorting through how it all fell apart? So good! I still have to read A Special Place for Women, and it’s top of my list.

Her latest book One Star Romance is further into contemporary romance territory than any of her prior books. It’s not only the title, but this whole book centers around a couple who meet early on. I wouldn’t describe either of her last two books as romances, though they weren’t without love stories.

Hankin has a knack for developing compelling characters, and One Star Romance is no exception. If I had to choose a genre, I would describe this book as a contemporary romance, and stylistically it reminded me of Emily Henry. This isn’t your average enemies-to-lovers story, though–there’s a lot more going on here than you’d expect.

What is One Star Romance about?

The story spans across nearly a decade and is told in seven parts, beginning in 2013 and checking back in every one-to-two years through 2021. In 2013, Natalie and her best friend Gabby are headed out to celebrate Gabby’s birthday in New York, when the man Natalie doesn’t think is good enough for her best friend proposes. The same night that Angus and Gabby get engaged, Natalie meets his best friend, Rob.

This sets off the central tension of the story, and it isn’t what you think when you hear “enemies-to-lovers”. The central story (in my opinion) was actually around Natalie’s journey to find herself and her grief of losing the closeness she and Gabby shared when they were both single and trying to find their way in life. Natalie is judgmental of Angus, but eventually she realizes that Angus isn’t the problem, it’s that she still sees Gabby as her person, while Gabby’s person is now Angus.

What did I think?

This is a relatable experience for many people as they grow out of the young and single phase of friendships and it shifts to a different type of friendship. Natalie and Gabby are still close, but Natalie is no longer the person that Gabby confides every detail of her life to. They no longer live together and hang out every day. This is part of growing up, but it’s a part that has sadness to it, particularly when one person moves to the next phase of life before the other one.

Wrapped around this life change are a few other things that get caught up in everything. First, Natalie is an aspiring writer, but she hasn’t seen publishing success yet. Gabby and Natalie related over their creative pursuits, but Gabby eventually leaves artistic aspirations for a job in advertising. Natalie struggles with this new grown up and evolved version of Gabby. Rather than Hankin taking the obvious pathway of Gabby being disingenuous, this is truly a story about Natalie being on a different development timeline than Gabby through their twenties and how that can lead to feeling left behind.

Second and related to the first, Natalie ends up writing a book that gets published and she draws from what she knows. Which in this case, is a thinly veiled story about two best friends suffering through one of them getting engaged to a man who is wrong for her. Do you see the inspiration? This is what prompts the one star review from Rob, the best friend who I briefly mentioned earlier but who hasn’t come up again until now despite being the love interest. The reason for that is that by the end of the book, I felt this was more of a story about Natalie and her growth, rather than a enemies-to-lovers romance story.

Hankin does a great job showing Natalie growing up across the ten year span (it’s actually under ten years but I’m rounding up). Natalie has the immaturity of an early-twenty-something at the beginning. Feeling neglected, she takes out her feelings in a book and thinks no one will pick up on it. But it turns out Rob picked up on it, and as he points out—it seems Gabby may have as well. This all comes to fruition towards the end of the story, but I won’t spoil that. What I want to say is that Hankin writes a woman who grows and matures before our eyes in a way that felt authentic.

By the time things come together for Natalie and Rob, they’ve both changed in many ways, but also have become their true selves. This isn’t a story of two people who communicate too poorly to realize their feelings. This is a story about two people who aren’t matured to the point where they can be together. Yet. I’d argue that if they had gotten together years earlier, it wouldn’t have worked out because they were both caught up in their own growing up.

A sweet story with authentic characters who mature in their relationships and as individuals across the arc of the book. I thought this was well-written and compelling. This is a rom-com in many ways, but it also has a lot of character development and depth that can be lacking in some parts of that genre.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my copy. Opinions are my own.

About the Author

Hi, I’m Laura I’m an author, screenwriter, and performer who writes novels that you can read on a beach but also for a book club. My books include ONE-STAR ROMANCE (out June 18th), a Book of the Month pick that The Washington Post calls “real, refreshing and romantic,” THE DAYDREAMS, one of the “Best Beach Reads of 2023” (Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and more), HAPPY & YOU KNOW IT, a Book of the Month and Library Reads selection, and A SPECIAL PLACE FOR WOMEN, as seen on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. I have some TV/film projects in development, and my musical comedy has been featured in outlets like The Washington Post and The New York Times. I’m based in Washington, DC, where I once fell off a treadmill twice in one day. 

About the Book

A struggling writer is forced to walk down the aisle at her best friend’s wedding with the man who gave her book a very public one-star rating in this fresh romantic comedy from Laura Hankin.

Natalie and Rob couldn’t have less in common. Nat’s a messy artist, and Rob’s a rigid academic. The only thing they share is their devotion to their respective best friends—who just got engaged. Still, unexpected chemistry has Natalie cautiously optimistic about being maid of honor to Rob’s best man.

Until, minutes before the ceremony, Nat learns that Rob wrote a one-star review of her new novel, which has them both reeling: Nat from imposter syndrome, and Rob over the reason he needed to write it.

When the reception ends, these two opposites hope they’ll never meet again. But, as they slip from their twenties into their thirties, they’re forced together whenever their fast-track best friends celebrate another milestone. Through housewarmings and christenings, life-changing triumphs and failures, Natalie and Rob grapple with their own choices—and how your harshest critic can become your perfectly imperfect match.

After all, even the truest love stories sometimes need a bit of rewriting.