Synopsis
The premise: Hazel Bradford has known Josh Im since college, where she threw up on his shoes the night they met and has been “too much” for him ever since. Ten years later, she’s an elementary school teacher who’s just been hired at the school where Josh’s sister, Emily — Hazel’s best friend — teaches. When Hazel’s apartment floods and Josh’s cheating girlfriend sends him running home early from L.A., the two end up unwilling roommates. To get Josh back out into the dating world, they agree to set each other up — badly, repeatedly — on a string of double dates, which is a considerably easier plan in theory than in practice.
Series: A standalone (2018) from Christina Lauren, the writing duo (Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings) originally known for the 10-book Beautiful Bastard series and, more recently, a run of contemporary standalones.
Vibe: Friends-to-lovers by way of best-friend’s-brother and second chance, with a genuinely specific Korean-American family thread running through it — not a diversity box-check, but a real part of who Josh is and how his family shows up on the page.
Why We Loved It
Hazel avoids the “not like other girls” trap that this kind of heroine usually falls into. She’s a third-grade teacher with an army of pets, no filter, and zero interest in dialing herself back for anyone — and the book earns it. As she puts it, there’s something about “the eight-year-old brain that resonates with me on a spiritual level.” She’s magnetic without being a cartoon, vulnerable without losing her edges, and — crucially — she has real friendships that don’t suffer for being “too much.”
Josh isn’t written as her rigid, brooding foil. He’s a genuinely fun, easygoing guy with a good relationship with his sister and his parents — not a stick-in-the-mud who needs Hazel to unlock his spontaneity. That choice keeps the book from leaning on the tired “opposites” dynamic, and makes their friendship read as believable long before the romance kicks in.
The Korean family details feel lived-in, not decorative. Hazel showing up with an armful of fruit for her first meeting with Josh’s mother — in contrast to his ex, who never bothered to learn anything about his family — does more work establishing who Hazel is than pages of description could. It’s also part of a broader pattern across Christina Lauren’s catalog of writing specific, well-observed Korean characters rather than folding in diversity as an afterthought.
The forced-proximity setup does real work establishing tone. Hazel moving into Josh’s apartment while he’s out of town, and getting hit with a frying pan when he comes home early and startles her, sets their dynamic up as friendship first — funny, a little chaotic, entirely believable — rather than manufacturing romantic tension out of the gate.
This is the book that made Meg a romance reader — read in a hospital bed in pre-op emergency gallbladder surgery, finished mid-transfer into the OR because she refused to hand back the Kindle. That’s not really a review, but it’s the review.
Before You Read, You Should Know …
The blind-date montage runs long. Three or four failed double dates make the point that Josh and Hazel are better for each other than anyone else in the rotation, but the same point lands with half as many scenes — this is the stretch of the book most likely to have you skimming on a reread.
The central conflict is mostly a missing conversation. After Josh and Hazel sleep together, neither says anything honest about it — they just go back to setting each other up. For two people established as close, blunt-spoken friends, the silence reads more like a plot mechanism than in-character behavior, and it slows the back half of the book down.
The surprise pregnancy arrives late and adds little. Josh doesn’t tell Hazel he loves her until after he accidentally finds out she’s pregnant — which means the emotional climax of the book is prompted by a plot device rather than an earned decision. If you’re not a surprise-baby reader, know that it shows up around the 90% mark and could have been cut without losing anything.
The Verdict
A charming, well-observed entry point into contemporary romance — the kind of book that can convert a reader who didn’t think the genre was for them. Hazel is a fully realized “too much” heroine instead of a manic pixie dream girl, Josh is a real partner instead of a broody foil, and the Korean family texture gives the book more specificity than its premise promises. The back half drags a little and leans on a surprise baby it didn’t need, but the friendship at the center is strong enough to carry it.
Listen to the Full Discussion
Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating — Meg’s first-ever romance novel, revisited: a “too much” heroine done right, Nikki’s Korean blindness, and why we hate a surprise baby.
