The Downside Of Love

This isn't a story about a love triangle. There is no triangle involved. This isn't a story about an accidental pregnancy. Although having a baby with her . . . I would. This isn't a story about lies and deception, even though at times I've lied to myself. No, this is my story. A story about sacrifice. A story about a man who fell in love with the wrong girl. A story I wish I never had to tell. This is a story about the true meaning of the downside of love.

Charlie is handed a crappy senior year. Despite losing thirty pounds over the summer, he still gets called “Chunks” Grisner. What’s worse, he has to share a locker with the biggest Lord of the Rings freak his school has ever seen. He also can’t figure out whether Charlotte VanderKleaton, the beautiful strawberry lip-glossed new girl, likes him the way he likes her. Oh, and then there’s his mom. She’s disappeared—again—and his dad won’t talk about it. Somewhere between the madness, Charlie can at least find comfort in his one and only talent that just might get him out of this life-sucking place. But will he be able to hold his head above water in the meantime?

A laugh out loud look at first love, loss and trying to avoid the girl of your dreams. What a stupid expression that is in the first place: To fall in love. Like you fall into a ditch or something. Maybe people need to look where they’re going. As far as Phoebe Davis is concerned, love is to be avoided at all costs. Why would you spend your life worrying about something that turns you into a complete moron? If her best friend Polly is anything to go by, the first sniff of a relationship makes you forget about your friends (like, hello?), get completely obsessed with sex (yawn) and bang on constantly about a person who definitely isn't as great as you think they are. So Phoebe isn't going to fall in love, ever. But then she meets Emma . . . Love is for Losers by Wibke Brueggemann is a hilarious, life-affirming novel about all the big stuff: love, sex, death, family, heartbreak, kittens . . . and kisses that turn the whole world upside down.

Tilly Frost has grown up reading her grandmother's bestselling romance novels - so when the one and only Beatrix Frost is taken ill, Tilly finishes writing her latest work. Then Tilly agrees to start the next book. But what is her gran hiding from her? And how can Tilly write a heart-pounding romance when she's never been in love? Can she turn her school crush into something more? One thing Tilly should know is that the course of true love never did run smooth... If you liked FANGIRL, you'll love this!

Livia Stowe has never been lucky in love. While her friends were going to parties and dances and on dates, Livia was being shuffled in and out of hospitals, making her dating life difficult. But this summer is going to be different. Cancer-free for over a year, Livia’s boarding a plane to visit her brother as he studies abroad at Princeton University. She’s determined to make the most of her trip, recording every moment of it in her private blog. Maybe she’ll even have a fling with a cute college boy! America is bright, exciting, and filled with romantic possibilities. And then Livia meets Adam, and her plans for summer fun become so much more. Entranced by the magical New York City that he shows her, Livia is smitten, but is she really ready to risk her heart again? Things I Know About Love is funny, unforgettable, and a bit heartbreaking—just like first love can be.

Tucked away at the base of the Rocky Mountains lived a little boy with one singular dream: leave this broken and battered home and become someone. Be somebody's hero. That boy was me-Colby Brooks. Except I'm not that same little boy anymore. My dreams might still be the same, but my reality isn't. I'm smarter. Stronger. A man. And I learned a long damn time ago, the only way to achieve my dreams was to avoid distractions-at any cost. Focus. Resolve. Determination. But all it took was one single night. One night and my entire life...changed. One night had me colliding head first with the biggest distraction of my life; Rory Oaks. Smart. Charming. Beautiful. Rory changed everything. Quickly, my one-track mind started to bend. Each kiss faded decade-long dreams. And with one single incident, I fly off course.

Now an HBO Max series starring Ray Romano and Cristin Milioti From one of our most exciting and provocative young writers, a poignant, riotously funny story of how far some will go for love—and how far some will go to escape it. Hazel has just moved into a trailer park of senior citizens, with her father and Diane—his extremely lifelike sex doll—as her roommates. Life with Hazel’s father is strained at best, but her only alternative seems even bleaker. She’s just run out on her marriage to Byron Gogol, CEO and founder of Gogol Industries, a monolithic corporation hell-bent on making its products and technologies indispensable in daily life. For over a decade, Hazel put up with being veritably quarantined by Byron in the family compound, her every movement and vital sign tracked. But when he demands to wirelessly connect the two of them via brain chips in a first-ever human “mind-meld,” Hazel decides what was once merely irritating has become unbearable. The world she escapes into is a far cry from the dry and clinical bubble she’s been living in, a world populated with a whole host of deviant oddballs. As Hazel tries to carve out a new life for herself in this uncharted territory, Byron is using the most sophisticated tools at his disposal to find her and bring her home. His threats become more and more sinister, and Hazel is forced to take drastic measures in order to find a home of her own and free herself from Byron’s virtual clutches once and for all. Perceptive and compulsively readable, Made for Love is at once an absurd, raunchy comedy and a dazzling, profound meditation marriage, monogamy, and family.

For better or for worse, 'til death do us part . . . The better captured me; she's who stole my heart. And made me realize I couldn't live without this woman. The worse of her took my breath away--kicked me when I was down and twisted me into a million knots. When I first met her, I thought she was someone I would never see again. The second time I ran into her, it was a random coincidence. The third? I didn't know it at the time, but she was the girl I was going to marry. But life isn't always perfect. You have to take the better and the worse--even if it means giving her up, having her slip between your fingers, and letting her walk away. I'm getting married. This is forever, 'til death do us part.