The romance novel How to End a Love Story (2024) marks author Yulin Kuang’s authorial debut. In the book, Helen Zhang, a best-selling author, reconnects as an adult with her high school classmate, Grant Shepherd, who is a screenwriter. A tragic accident from their teenage years left them both emotionally scarred, and as they work together to adapt one of Helen’s novels for television, they confront their unresolved grief while navigating their attraction for each other. How to End a Love Story was the May 2024 selection for Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club, and it was featured in People Magazine, NPR, and Good Morning America. Kuang is a screenwriter who works on film adaptations of popular romance novels, most notably Emily Henry’s Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation.

Page numbers in this guide refer to the Kindle e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide include descriptions of a character’s death by suicide and the death of a minor in a car accident. They also include descriptions of anxiety and panic attacks.

Plot Summary

In 2008, Helen Zhang is a highschooler, and her 16-year-old sister, Michelle, has died by suicide. As Helen sits at the funeral between her grief-stricken parents, Grant Shepherd arrives. He is a popular student in Helen’s graduating class, and it was his car that struck Michelle and killed her when she ran into traffic. Grant feels intense guilt about this. Helen and her mother furiously ask Grant to leave.

Thirteen years later, Helen is a best-selling young adult (YA) author, and she has recently relocated to Los Angeles from New York to work on adapting her novels, The Ivy Papers, for television. Helen is hoping the change of scenery will help end her writer’s block and provide some distance from her overanxious parents. She sometimes feels suffocated by their lofty expectations of her and their insistence that she conforms culturally to their Chinese American traditions. Meanwhile, Grant is a successful screenwriter who has been offered a lead role in the writers’ room for adapting Helen’s work. Grant is reluctant to take the job due to their previous associations, but his agent convinces him to do so. He finally agrees because he does not think Helen will be closely involved with the project.

Helen notices Grant at a dinner for the writing team, and they have an unpleasant exchange after which she orders him to quit. Grant tells her that if she is not comfortable working with him, she needs to tell their boss, Suraya. Helen is fearful of alienating her new superior and decides not to have Grant replaced. Privately, Grant is still haunted by his role in Michelle’s death and has a panic attack when he gets home after seeing Helen. Following this, he tries to be welcoming but has little luck persuading Helen to consider him a useful professional resource and potential friend. Helen, for her part, continues to search her sister’s computer for a suicide note, unable to move on from the past. She admits to herself that by writing about teenagers, she was processing her trauma.  

Helen struggles to adapt to the writers’ room, which frequently features intense discussions of personal topics and opinions—she finds this challenging because of her introverted nature. Grant resents her continued animosity, but he eventually resolves to be unfailingly polite and cautious with her. Suraya, to Helen’s chagrin, notices her discomfort with the show process and orders the entire team to attend a camping and hiking retreat. On the hike, Grant tells Helen she should respect her own work enough to stop alienating the other writers. Helen takes a marijuana edible during the hike, and while under the influence, she admits to Grant that she regrets her harsh behavior. She also fights her attraction to him, suspecting he feels the same about her.

The subsequent weeks in the writers’ room are more productive, and Helen and Grant become friendly. They meet by chance at the airport before Christmas, and they are both headed to their hometown in New Jersey for the break. They share a companionable flight together. In New Jersey, Helen is stiff and formal with her parents, who expect her to be successful and hope she will marry a Chinese American man. Grant reunites with his high school girlfriend and ends their casual sexual relationship, realizing that he wants a more lasting commitment. He texts Helen to meet him, and she agrees.

Grant and Helen break into their old high school together, continuing their warm and funny conversations about their past. They pose as a couple when the principal catches them, and Helen later asks Grant to visit Michelle’s grave with her. There, she confesses her lingering pain and anger. Grant invites her to dinner with his mother, and they enjoy their time together. Afterward, Helen and Grant share an intimate moment, but Helen flees when she feels too vulnerable. Grant, eager to continue their connection, invites her to a New Year’s Eve party, where their physical intimacy deepens. However, Helen abruptly leaves before they can discuss it.

After they return to Los Angeles, Grant and Helen find it difficult to fight their attraction for one another. Helen visits his house, and they spend the night together. They officially begin a relationship, but Helen insists it can only be temporary—it can only last until she returns to New York. Grant agrees, though he suspects he will fall in love with her. Their emotional bond grows as they share their memories of Michelle’s death and Grant admits that he experiences panic attacks.

However, Helen refuses to tell her parents that Grant works with her or that they are in a relationship. She breaks off their relationship entirely when her parents visit Los Angeles and are upset when they learn of his role on the show. During the visit, Helen is in a car accident and breaks several bones. Afterward, in the hospital, she tries to assure Grant they have no future and says he deserves happiness with someone else. Right after, she lashes out at her parents when her mother expresses her anger after discovering that Helen and Grant were in a relationship; Helen accuses her parents of not truly accepting or understanding her, leading to a brief estrangement with them.

Grant takes a road trip to New Jersey to help pack up his childhood home as his mother is moving to Ireland. He takes a trip to New York to see Helen’s favorite library, and he spots her in the train station as his own train departs. He calls her phone, but when she does not answer, he resolves to try and forget her. Meanwhile, Helen reconciles with her parents. They express their confidence in her career choices, and Helen begins writing letters to Michelle as she faces the full extent of her unresolved grief and trauma.

Helen returns to Los Angeles for the show premiere, and she is devastated when Grant does not show up. In her hotel suite, she writes a final letter to Michelle, telling her about Grant and her love for him. She emails him a copy of it. Grant, drinking alone, reads Helen’s manuscript and rushes to her hotel to discover if she truly meant her confession of love. Helen assures him she did, and they reunite. Helen brings Grant to meet her parents on her next trip home, and her mother shows him how to honor Michelle at the family’s shrine. Grant proposes to Helen in New York, and they get married in Ireland, where his mother lives. Helen and Grant each begin successful new writing projects, and Helen is joyful about their future together.