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NetGalley Review of Don’t Tell Me How This Ends

Posted on April 7, 2026October 10, 2025 by caritagardiner
Screenshot 2025-10-09 at 8.57.43 AM

Title: Don't Tell Me How This Ends

Author: Adrienne Thurman

Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback

publication date: April 14, 2026

pages: 320

peppers: 3 (on this scale)

warnings: birth, parental abandonment, heartache, alcohol, early onset dimentia

summary: Kaia Harper knows that men always leave, so she's perfectly happy getting what she needs from one-night stands on her apps...until her very pregnant and very persistent sister Zola needs to use Kaia to test run her new match-making service. Zola will set Kaia up on three dates to prove her questionnaire system works. Along the way, Kaia, who doesn't need or want help from anyone, keeps running across tow-truck-driver Ro, who has to assist Kaia.

tropes:

  • he's more than he appears
  • sister's pregnant
  • growing apart from my bestie
  • putting up emotional walls
  • absentee father
  • hot mess mother

what I liked:

  • voice
  • humor -- such great lines!
  • sisterly relationship
  • the romance
  • great professions of love
  • Kaia's journey of self-discovery

what I didn’t like:

  •  n/a

overall rating: 5 (of 5 stars)

As always, you can click on the photo above if you want to buy the book.

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WHAT I DO

I serve as a class dean and teach English to high schoolers at a boarding school in Connecticut. I’ve earned a Bachelor of Arts (Amherst College), an Education Master in Learning and Teaching (Harvard University Graduate School of Education), a Master of Arts in English (Bread Loaf School of English), and most recently a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing with a certificate in the online teaching of writing (Southern New Hampshire University).

As a writer, I hope to capture the complexity and joy of life in the New England boarding school world. On this site, I share what I know about trying to write fiction while deaning, teaching English, coaching, and doing the other tasks associated with helping to raise over six hundred other people’s children.

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Read my recent “Why” Wednesday Blog Posts

  • 381. Why Betting is Entertainment
  • NetGalley Review of Mad Mabel
  • NetGalley Review of While You Were Seething
  • 380. Why Jumbled (GUEST POST)
  • NetGalley Review of Don’t Tell Me How This Ends
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