“When was the last time I’d completed my full skin-care routine instead of just dunking my head under the faucet? Hell, when was the last time I’d completed anything?”

This quote highlights Hazel’s deep sense of stagnation and emotional depletion at the novel’s start. Her inability to complete her “full skin-care routine” reflects the broader paralysis she feels in her life after her divorce, setting the stage for her journey of personal reinvention.

“I’m seeing the heroine of her own story. Sure, you’re at rock bottom right now. But that just means you’re one chapter away from pluckily pulling yourself up. You can do this, Haze. You’re primed for a comeback.”

This is an early instance of the novel’s habit of relating Hazel’s life to the plot of a romantic comedy. When Zoey calls Hazel the heroine of her own life, the comparison to a rom-com heroine works twofold, reinforcing Hazel’s identity as both a writer and the protagonist of her own redemption arc.

“I blew out a breath through my teeth. That was the thing. I’d had my shot at HEA, and it had blown up in my face. If there was one thing I knew for sure, you weren’t given unlimited chances in love. That’s why they called it ‘the one.’”

This quote depicts Hazel’s initial fatalism about love, rooted in her past failures and emotional scars. It shows how she mistakenly equates personal worth with the success of a single relationship, setting up the emotional journey she must undergo to recognize Happiness as a Lifelong Project.