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julies_reading 's review for:
The Break-Up Pact
by Emma Lord
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
June went back to her small beach hometown when her sister died to take over the tea shop they created together. When both her and Levi - her sister's best friend turned family friend turned her high school crush who turned her down - go through viral break ups at the same time, they decide to fake date while helping plan for June's brothers wedding. June can get attention to her business, Levi can get his ex back, and June's best friend can publish everything. And it'll all be okay because they're just friends! Totally!
I hadn't read from this author before, but I'm usually a sucker for friends to lovers, so I thought I'd give this a shot. My main takeaway from this book was that it was so bogged down with trying to accomplish so many tropes that it didn't really succeed in any of them. For friends to lovers, I didn't fully believe that they were such close friends for a long time. For fake dating, I found a lot of the romantic stuff they were trying to do cringey instead of swoon-worthy - and all the "trying to go viral" stuff felt so untrue to real life to the point of being annoying. This book has solidified that I will avoid romances with the internet anywhere in them like the plague. Then with the wedding planning forced proximity, it didn't pay off in the end (because we don't see the wedding) and they even say in the book that most of it has been planned so what they're doing doesn't really even matter. This book is the exemplification of the romance genre sticking way too hard to tropes rather than telling interesting stories. I didn't have any huge problems with the characters, but I didn't find myself invested. I did think the small beach town/ small business was cute, but I wish that June's arc about what she wants to do with the business was much more developed. This third act conflict was one that I typically don't like, and I didn't like the beginning of it, but for some reason the ending did end up landing for me. I thought the characters handled everything in a really mature way. I think that's the first time I've ever liked the ending of a romance book I otherwise didn't end up liking.
Overall, this book tried to do too much and ended up with very little. I didn't find myself invested with any portion of this, and often was annoyed.
June went back to her small beach hometown when her sister died to take over the tea shop they created together. When both her and Levi - her sister's best friend turned family friend turned her high school crush who turned her down - go through viral break ups at the same time, they decide to fake date while helping plan for June's brothers wedding. June can get attention to her business, Levi can get his ex back, and June's best friend can publish everything. And it'll all be okay because they're just friends! Totally!
I hadn't read from this author before, but I'm usually a sucker for friends to lovers, so I thought I'd give this a shot. My main takeaway from this book was that it was so bogged down with trying to accomplish so many tropes that it didn't really succeed in any of them. For friends to lovers, I didn't fully believe that they were such close friends for a long time. For fake dating, I found a lot of the romantic stuff they were trying to do cringey instead of swoon-worthy - and all the "trying to go viral" stuff felt so untrue to real life to the point of being annoying. This book has solidified that I will avoid romances with the internet anywhere in them like the plague. Then with the wedding planning forced proximity, it didn't pay off in the end (because we don't see the wedding) and they even say in the book that most of it has been planned so what they're doing doesn't really even matter. This book is the exemplification of the romance genre sticking way too hard to tropes rather than telling interesting stories. I didn't have any huge problems with the characters, but I didn't find myself invested. I did think the small beach town/ small business was cute, but I wish that June's arc about what she wants to do with the business was much more developed. This third act conflict was one that I typically don't like, and I didn't like the beginning of it, but for some reason the ending did end up landing for me. I thought the characters handled everything in a really mature way. I think that's the first time I've ever liked the ending of a romance book I otherwise didn't end up liking.
Overall, this book tried to do too much and ended up with very little. I didn't find myself invested with any portion of this, and often was annoyed.