Rowena’s review of The Break Up Artist by Philip Siegel.

Some sixteen-year-olds babysit for extra cash.

Some work at the mall.

Becca Williamson breaks up couples.

Becca knows from experience the damage that love can do. After all, it was so-called love that turned Huxley from her childhood best friend into a social-world dictator, and love that left Becca’s older sister devastated at the altar. Instead of sitting on the sidelines, Becca strikes back—for just one hundred dollars via PayPal, she will trick and manipulate any couple’s relationship into smithereens. And with relationship zombies overrunning her school and treating single girls as if they’re second-class citizens, business is unfortunately booming. Even Becca’s best friend, Val, has resorted to outright lies to snag a boyfriend.

One night, Becca receives a mysterious offer to break up the most popular couple in school: Huxley and raw football team’s star player, Steve. To succeed, she’ll have to plan her most elaborate scheme to date—starting rumors, sabotaging cell phones, breaking into cars…not to mention sneaking back into Huxley’s good graces. All while fending off the inappropriate feelings she may or may not be having for Val’s new boyfriend.

No one said being the Break-Up Artist would be easy.

There might be some slight spoilers in this review so if you haven’t read it yet and don’t like spoilers, you should probably skip this review until after you’ve read it.
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You’ve been warned…

The blurb for this book does a great job of telling what this story is all about so I’m going to just jump right into my thoughts on this book.

Becca Williamson is The Break Up Artist but nobody knows that and throughout this book, you see Becca spoiling relationships everywhere she goes…for pay.

The entire time that I was reading this book, I wanted to smack someone. First it was Becca because I just couldn’t get behind her reasons for her business. She was hurt by a best friend and instead of cherishing the friend that she has now, she continues to hold on to her grudges from the past in order to justify her actions.

Becca irritated me throughout a lot of the book because she messed with people’s lives. It’s one thing to hold a grudge against someone forever and stay mad at that person but still live your life and it’s a completely different thing to go around and sabotage people’s relationships and causing a whole bunch of hurt because you think that you’re saving them a whole lot of time and energy since they were going to break up anyway. It’s their time and their energy that they’re wasting and they should be the ones to decide whether they end their relationships or not.

Then there was Becca’s sister, Diane. She got on my nerves too. She’s Becca’s older sister and she should have been telling Becca that she shouldn’t be messing with people’s lives the way she was but instead of being a good older sister, she’s enabling Becca by helping her with everything. I wanted Diane to wake up and grow from her heartbreak and I wanted her to stop taking advantage of her younger sister’s loyalty and step up and be the older sister I wanted her to be from the beginning.
Over the course of the book, my feelings toward Becca started to shift because Becca started to come into her own and she started realizing things that I wanted her to realize and you really see her character grow into a more well-rounded character and in the end, I liked her.

I was duped by Ezra. I thought he was one of the good ones but he turned out to be nothing but a smarmy douche. Being the romantic that I am, I was rooting for Ezra and Becca for a little bit but I’m not at all mad with the way that the book ended. I’m glad that she chose her friendship and the high road over a romance with a jerk.

This book isn’t easy to read and there were times when I wanted to put the book down but Siegel did a good job of dangling me by a string because as mad as I got at both Becca and Diane and even Val and Huxley at times, I wanted to find out how everything ended.

Grade: 3 out of 5

This book is available from Harlequin Teen. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.