Breaking up is hard to do, but you could’ve done better is a book by Hilary Campbell (who is also the co-illustrator of Feminist fight club), published in January 2019. I received a digital copy of it from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a really funny collection of short breakup stories, and I liked it a lot. A breakup is generally painful, sad, and sometimes a mess, whether you’re dumping someone or you’re the one being dumped by your (now ex-)significant other, but the author manages to make you laugh all the way through her book, starting with the dedication, in which she writes :

To that one dude, for being such an inspirational dick.

From “the guy who throws his gameboy at his ex when she dumps him” to “the one that demands she give him back the underwear he got her as a gift”, all 100 pages of breakup drama have their own cute little illustration, and even though some of those don’t add a lot to the story in itself, they do add to the humor in the harsher breakups.

All those stories come from different people, which explains the slightly different tones between the various texts, but the drawings serve a double purpose here, and help the author give to this collection a feeling of consistency.

A critic could be made that the premise of the book is a pretty simple one, and that it doesn’t require much effort (or time) to read it, but if you’re looking for something light and fun to read on a sad, rainy day, this is the book you want !