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garbage_mcsmutly's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.5
A decent enemies to lovers start but a bit boring overall. Plus the reveal of him only wanting to take over her company because he was bored made it hard to like him.
Also the female narrator lacked affect through most of the scenes.
Also the female narrator lacked affect through most of the scenes.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Infidelity, and Misogyny
Minor: Confinement, Death of parent, Medical content, Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Two short mentions of the Japanese internment camps in Americafigsofpeach's review
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Misogyny
Minor: Death of parent
hanlov's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.
I am a workplace romance STAN, please trust me here. This blurb seemed so up my alley!! Nami has just turned 30 and the tech company she’s spent years building has lost funding. At her birthday, she wishes to find her soulmate, but the universe delivers her a hate mate: her high school nemesis Jae Lee, who also happens to be VP of Acquisitions at the company looking to buy Nami’s company. Is there more to their banter and passion than business and an old rivalry? Like, this sounds like something I’d love, however… it fell short for me. The parts that I liked: the banter was mostly fun and entertaining, the diversity, the family aspects, and some genuinely cute scenes. The negatives outweigh the positives sadly. The conflict comes from both of them holding onto wrong assumptions of each other for over a decade. Nami came off overbearing and selfish in her personal life and all the business aspects of her job (which we know nothing about) and there was very little rational thought from our FMC. She’s only driven by trying to beat her high school nemesis/bully from 12 years ago from tennis matches at work, ramen eating, beer drinking, dancing etc., it got repetitive and not believable. Jae works at a company that is a stand-in for Amazon and essentially just doesn’t understand that he grew up privileged and that he works for a company that only cares about the bottom line (shocker, that’s every company ever)? He has also been obsessed with Nami, the girl no one liked in high school and is now for some reason incredibly attractive? The writing just didn’t really work for me with the dialogue and info dumping for all the characters, and actions were overly descriptive. The third act breakup was just too cliche and shallow and the business resolution?? Are we joking?? Also, PLEASE free us readers from the clutches of overly quirky characters. I’m a big Star Wars and LOTR fan; I do not bring it into every conversation in my daily life like these folks somehow do. Chapter 25’s nerd presentation would probably get me fired lmao. And 30 year old characters acting so immature, I’m begging authors to free us fr. I don’t like cringing when I read! Also from a formatting aspect, anytime the characters texted, I was fighting for my life trying to figure out who said what and what was thought and what was text message, not sure if that’s the uncorrected proof or what but that bugged me.
If you need an easy to read romance with plenty of millennial humor, this might be perfect for you, but it didn’t quite work for me.
Content Warnings
Minor: Death of parent and Misogyny
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