16 Ways To Break a Heart

Gr 10 Up—She's exciting; he's charming: Natalie and Dan fell in love almost instantly. But that was some time ago, and now Natalie is sending Dan packets of letters detailing moments of their relationship. The letters start out sweet, but as we shift to Dan's perspective, he's waiting for the other shoe to drop: he knows there's a big reveal coming. Natalie wants Dan to know how much she loved him and how much he hurt her. Dan wants Natalie to understand how her jealous rages destroyed them both. The "he said, she said" narrative brings to life this toxic, slow-motion train wreck of a relationship. Seeing the story largely through Dan's eyes—through conversations with his friends and his reactions to Natalie's letters—means that teens get a biased analysis of what went wrong, with the book stressing Natalie's temper and instability while downplaying Dan's flirtation with his other friends. This is a decent choice for teens who enjoyed Daniel Handler's Why We Broke Up but wished it had more drama.