How to End a Love Story

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.

Throughout the novel, meals serve to symbolically represent the nature of relationships. Helen and Grant’s first meal together is a tense lunch, which her assistant sets up “without fuss or direct contact between them” (28). Helen orders a salad, as if fearful of displaying more of an appetite—this symbolizes how she is attracted to Grant but attempts to hide this. The meal itself is tense, as Helen rebuffs Grant’s efforts to get to know her or discuss how television writing can differ from writing novels. Later, Helen finds herself resenting how Grant chooses a popular sandwich location, seeing it as a cutting reminder that he is more suited to the writers’ room than she is.

Later, at her family’s Christmas gathering, Helen relies on her own names for the traditional dishes, lacking the proficiency in Cantonese or Mandarin to name them for herself. This reinforces that she is part of her family but often feels disconnected from them. Helen’s meal with her parents in Los Angeles turns awkward when her mother refuses to eat after learning Grant works on the show.